Table of Contents

Title Page

CONTENTS

OVERVIEW

CHAPTER 1: ‘PREHISTORIC MONSTERS!’

CHAPTER 2: ‘HOPE IT’S THE DALEKS!’

CHAPTER 3: ‘PLEASE LET IT BE [...] 1966.’

CHAPTER 4: ‘WHAT HAVE I COME UPON?’

CHAPTER 5: ‘SCIENCE IS IN OPPOSITION TO ANCIENT TEMPLE RITUAL.’

CHAPTER 6: ‘NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN STOP ME NOW!’

CHAPTER 7: ‘I SHOULD LIKE A HAT LIKE THAT!’

CHAPTER 8: ‘LOOK AT HIM! HE’S NOT NORMAL, IS HE?’

CHAPTER 9: ‘A NEW ATLANTIS.’

APPENDIX A: ‘VITAL SECRET WILL DIE WITH ME. DR. W’

APPENDIX B: PRODUCTION TIMELINE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIOGRAPHY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Black Archive #40

THE UNDERWATER MENACE

By James Cooray Smith

Published April 2020 by Obverse Books

Cover Design © Cody Schell

Text © James Cooray Smith 2020

Range Editors: Paul Simpson, Philip Purser-Hallard.

James Cooray Smith has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding, cover or e-book other than which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

Respectfully dedicated to the memory of Paul Condon, who loved Doctor Who and its fandom so much it loved him back.

Here’s to you, fella

Recently Published

#28: Love & Monsters by Niki Haringsma

#29: The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon by John Toon

#30: The Dalek Invasion of Earth by Jonathan Morris

#31: Warriors’ Gate by Frank Collins

#32: The Romans by Jacob Edwards

#33: Horror of Fang Rock by Matthew Guerrieri

#34: Battlefield by Philip Purser-Hallard

#35: Timelash by Phil Pascoe

#36: Listen by Dewi Small

#37: Kerblam! by Naomi Jacobs and Thomas L Rodebaugh

#38: The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords

by James Mortimer

#39: The Silurians by Robert Smith?

CONTENTS

Overview

Synopsis

Chapter 1: ‘Prehistoric monsters’

Chapter 2: ‘Hope it’s the Daleks’

Chapter 3: ‘Please let it be… 1966’

Chapter 4: ‘What have I come upon?’

Chapter 5: ‘Science is in opposition to ancient temple ritual’

Chapter 6: ‘Nothing in the world can stop me now!’

Chapter 7: ‘I should like a hat like that!’

Chapter 8: ‘Look at him! He’s not normal, is he?’

Chapter 9: ‘A New Atlantis’

Appendix A: ‘Vital secret will die with me! Dr. W’

Appendix B: Production Timeline

Bibliography

Biography

Acknowledgments

OVERVIEW

Serial Title: The Underwater Menace

Writer: Geoffrey Orme

Director: Julia Smith

Original UK Transmission Dates: 14 January – 4 February 1967

Running Time: Episode 1: 24m 18s

Episode 2: 25m 00s

Episode 3: 24m 09s

Episode 4: 23m 20s

UK Viewing Figures: Episode 1: 8.3 million

Episode 2: 7.5 million

Episode 3: 7.1 million

Episode 4: 7.0 million

Regular Cast: Patrick Troughton (Doctor Who), Michael Craze (Ben Jackson), Anneke Wills (Polly), Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon)

Guest Cast: Joseph Fürst (Professor Zaroff), Catherine Howe (Ara), Tom Watson (Ramo), Peter Stephens (Lolem), Colin Jeavons (Damon), Gerald Taylor (Damon’s Assistant), Graham Ashley (Overseer), Tony Handy (Zaroff’s Guard), Paul Anil (Jacko), PG Stephens (Sean), Noel Johnson (Thous), Roma Woodnutt (Nola)

Antagonists: Professor Zaroff

Novelisation: Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace by Nigel Robinson. The Target Doctor Who Library #129.

Responses:

‘[U]ndoubtedly the weakest of the second Doctor’s era, if not of the Sixties as a whole.’

[David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker, The Television Companion Volume One]

‘The Underwater Menace is a remarkable, unique piece of Doctor Who. With its sparkly fish people, insane costumes, killer sharks, pet octopuses and gloriously mental Professor Zaroff, this is the most bat-sh*t mental Who has ever been.’

[Cameron K.McEwan, Blogtor Who]

SYNOPSIS

Episode 1

The TARDIS lands on a volcanic island, where the Doctor, Ben, Polly and new companion Jamie are swiftly captured by hooded figures who transport them underground. They are taken by a mute guard to a dining hall where the Doctor defends Ara, a serving girl, and they are fed a meal of plankton.

A priest, Lolem, arrives and tells them his God, Amdo, prophesised their arrival and that they are to be sacrificed. The Doctor buys time by asking Lolem to deliver a message to Professor Zaroff – the only man who could produce the food they have just eaten. Lolem refuses, but Ara takes the note, which claims that the Doctor knows ‘a vital secret’.

Just before the Doctor and his friends are sacrificed, Zaroff runs in and stops the ceremony. The Doctor convinces Zaroff also to spare his companions. Ben and Jamie are sent to work in the mines, but Polly is told she is to be given gills and turned into one of the slave Fish People who farm food under water.

The Doctor discovers from Zaroff that they are in the lost city of Atlantis, which he is in the process of raising from the seabed. Ara tells the Doctor of the threat to Polly, but it seems to be too late, as she is prepared for surgery.

Episode 2

The Doctor stalls the operation by interfering with the lighting to the operating theatre. Though his sabotage is discovered, Ara is able to free Polly and lead her to the safety of the caves.

Zaroff explains to the Doctor that he plans to drain the ocean into the core of the Earth in order to render Atlantis accessible by land. The Doctor points out this will blow the planet apart but Zaroff is unconcerned, claiming that the destruction of the Earth is the scientists’ dream of supreme power!

In the mines, Ben and Jamie help Sean and Jacko hide the compass they intend to use in an escape plan via an underground tunnel. Selection process provides the opportunity to slip away. They split into two groups when they come to a junction in the tunnel.

Meanwhile, the Doctor escapes from Zaroff and makes his way to the caves, where he meets Ara, who tells him Polly is safe. They overhear a priest named Ramo telling Damon, Zaroff’s Atlantean scientist assistant, that he dislikes Zaroff. Ara tells Damon that she saw Polly in the marketplace and when he leaves, the Doctor tells Ramo that Zaroff intends to destroy Atlantis. Ramo offers to take the Doctor to Thous, leader of Atlantis.

Polly meets up with her friends and Sean and Jacko in the Temple. The Doctor speak to Thous but is unable to convince him of Zaroff’s madness. He is summoned to the Temple by Thous and handed over to Zaroff.

Episode 3

Ramo and the Doctor are taken to be fed to sharks, while Zaroff assures Thous that they were lying about him. Polly, hiding inside the statue of Amdo, uses a mouthpiece built into it, to order all to bow before him. While the Atlanteans do so, the Doctor and Ramo are able to escape and join the others in a hidden section of the altar.

Lolem believes that a miracle has taken place and rushes to tell Thous. Zaroff, who has just told Thous that Atlantis will be raised in two days, is scornful and orders a search to be initiated for the Doctor.

The Doctor and the others capture Zaroff, while Sean and Jacko rouse the Fish People to strike. Zaroff collapses, leaving the Doctor, Jamie and Ben to go and check that his plan will not go on without him. In their absence, Ramo and Polly are tricked into freeing Zaroff, who kills the priest and makes his escape with Polly as his hostage.

Jamie rescues Polly with the help of Sean and Jacko. Zaroff flees into the cave system.

Thous agrees to meet with the striking Fish People but Zaroff overrules him. When Thous objects Zaroff shoots him and kills his guards. He declares that nothing can stop him now.

Episode 4

Later, the Doctor and Ben discover the wounded Thous and take him to safety. The Doctor explains his plan to flood the lower part of Atlantis, and tells Sean and Jacko to lead people to the higher areas.

As Atlantean society begins to break down, Ben and the Doctor overload the reactor in the generating station. Jamie and Polly fear that they are trapped by the rising water, as do Sean, Jacko and Ara who are carrying Thous and meet Damon as the Temple is engulfed.

Zaroff brings the detonation forward after the Doctor reveals his deadly plan to his guards, who desert him. Undaunted, Zaroff locks himself in his control room, determined to continue even at the cost of his own life. The Doctor and Ben lure him out, however, and cut him off from the control panel. He drowns still trying to destroy Atlantis.

The Doctor and his friends escape, though the Atlanteans believe they have drowned. Thous suggests raising a stone to him in the Temple, but Damon says they must reject superstition and build a new Atlantis.

CHAPTER 1: ‘PREHISTORIC MONSTERS!’

For most of its 20th-century existence, Doctor Who fans were to a large extent admirers of things that they couldn’t actually see. While from 1964 to 1989 new episodes of the series were always on for three months of a year or more, the programme’s past was largely inaccessible. This was principally because the BBC’s agreements with various entertainment unions meant repeats of it (and most other series made by the drama department) were prohibitively expensive more than 24 months after the programmes’ original transmission. Only one complete black-and-white story was rebroadcast in the whole of the 1960s, and while summer repeats of recent stories and Christmas compilation episodes became routine during the 1970s, the first time what 1980s Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner would later term ‘out of Doctor’ stories were re-shown was 1981, a full 18 years into the series’ run. The first commercial VHS release was in 1983, to celebrate the series’ twentieth 20th anniversary; the final VHS release, completing all then extant Doctor Who in that format, coincided with the series’ 40th anniversary in 2003.

Prior Doctor Who was effectively a conceptual entity, not unlike a dinosaur or some other prehistoric animal. Doctor Who’s history had a skeleton, of sorts, one that could be seen in old Radio Times and, a little later, publications like the Radio Times Doctor Who Tenth Anniversary Special and The Making of Doctor Who (1972)[1]. But that history still required anyone interested to do the work themselves if they wanted to put flesh on its bones. The body itself had to be guessed at, or divined through studying what relics could be accessed, and these could often be misleading[2]. As new episodes became old episodes, they too became accessible only through such relics and the memories of those who had seen them on transmission. It became inevitable that much of the historiography of the pseudo-scholarship of Doctor Who fandom was dependent on a shared history of earlier fan responses that could not be checked against the material itself; the DWAS[3] were like amateur classicists trying to divine the content of Aristophanes’ The Babylonians (426 BCE) entirely through the knowledge that Cleon regarded it as slanderous and by looking at the playwright’s other, surviving works.

Unlike the plays of Aristophanes[4], in the 1960s and early to mid-1970s all past Doctor Who was equally unobtainable. In a time before JNT’s ‘out of Doctor’ repeats and before home video releases were viable, it simply didn’t matter that some past Doctor Who was extant and some not, that ‘The Waking Ally’ (The Dalek Invasion of Earth episode 5, 1964) was safely in storage at the BBC Film Library on its original transmission master[5], or The Power of the Daleks episode 1 (1966) was not (and is still not) known to exist. Neither could be experienced, known or understood. The earliest Doctor Who fan efforts make this point very neatly for us: the Official Doctor Who Fan Club[6] newsletter, written by someone in contact with the production office and with some access to behind-the-scenes material, at one point referred to the first episode of Doctor Who as ‘Unborn Child’[7], and ran a ‘novelisation’ of the third episode that lasted for little more than a paragraph[8]. This is despite there seeming to have always been at least some version of that first episode in existence on BBC premises[9].

That shifted, in a sense, with the beginnings of the Target Doctor Who novelisation range[10] and many Doctor Who serials owe their earliest reputations, positive or negative, to their novelisations. While said novelisations can be misleading as to the content of the serial they supposedly represent in numerous ways, they gave those stories an afterlife in prose, enabling those interested in Doctor Who to engage or reengage with the material. A gap opened up between stories that Doctor Who’s audience could engage with on some meaningful level, and those that they couldn’t. A hierarchy emerged.

Spearhead from Space (1970) is a Doctor Who story it would be surprising for anyone with any interest in 20th-century Doctor Who to not have seen or at least read, and that has been true for a very long time. One of the earliest Doctor Who stories to be repeated[11] in its entirety, it’s also complete in the BBC archives and has subsequently been repeated twice more, in two different centuries, and has been shown on three different BBC channels. It has been commercially available continuously since 1987 on, successively, VHS, DVD and Blu-ray. As the first colour serial, the first of the 1970s and the debut of Jon Pertwee’s third Doctor, it’s both pivotal and easily accessible. It was also the first new novelisation of the 1970s (as Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion), in which form it has been in print[12] for most of the past 45 years. It has benefited from decades of momentum.

This momentum does not, perhaps surprisingly, exclusively benefit serials which are completely extant. The Moonbase (1967), the production of which overlapped with that of The Underwater Menace (1967) and which followed it in transmission sequence, has much in common with it, including a regular cast, near-identical budgets[13] and being hurriedly rewritten immediately before production. It is also represented in the BBC Archives by two of four episodes. But The Moonbase was novelised in 1975 as Doctor Who and the Cybermen, and like Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, this has rarely been out of print. As the book’s title makes clear, The Moonbase could boast an appearance from Doctor Who’s second most frequently recurring monsters, creatures who returned to television Doctor Who for the first time in half a decade a few weeks after the book’s initial publication.

Both the new-in-1975 story, Revenge of the Cybermen, and the book based on the 1967 story were written[14] by Gerry Davis (Doctor Who’s Story Editor for most of 1966 and early 1967. Davis would continue to write and co-write Doctor Who books, on and off, until 1986 and was interviewed about his contributions to the series until the year of his death. His advice and opinions concerning the series’ past, present and future were earnestly sought. In contrast The Underwater Menace’s author, Geoffrey Orme, was never interviewed about the series, and did not write for it subsequently[15], and his sole Doctor Who script was, like most Troughton stories not written by Gerry Davis, not novelised until the 1980s, with only three Troughton stories adapted to prose after it[16]. Unlike The Moonbase it was, and is, seen to exert little or no influence on Doctor Who, and as such it provokes little enthusiasm or celebration. It neither introduces or writes out any memorable characters[17], nor features any popular monsters or villains. There are no references to it in subsequent television Doctor Who[18]. It is one of a vanishingly small number of 20th-century Doctor Who stories to have no substantial sequel or prequel in any medium. With very few photographs taken during production, there was little visual material for use in the various glossy Doctor Who history books produced in the 1980s, whose printing of often striking colour photographs from black-and-white serials did much to shape fandom’s perceptions of the series’ earliest years.

That The Underwater Menace’s director, Julia Smith, was one of the UK’s first female drama directors, and became a key figure in television history – the co-creator of EastEnders (1985-), amongst many other projects – does not seem to have interested Doctor Who fans very much[19], fandom collectively at that point not interested in placing the series in a broader context of television history. All ‘missing’ television is difficult to engage with, and The Underwater Menace offered fewer opportunities than most Doctor Who stories[20].

When Doctor Who fans talk about ‘canonicity’ they usually mean it in terms of in-story continuity, ‘facts’ that exist within the fiction. We have already noted The Underwater Menace’s lack of canonical impact in this sense, but there is yet another, older sense in which it is also one of the least canonical of all Doctor Who serials. Its presence in early fan discourse was defined by its absence, and it was not an absence that was particularly regretted.

That absence completed a process that began in earnest when the story’s transmission master tapes were wiped[21] after 16mm film copies had been taken to serve as masters for export. It was exported to Australia, Hong Kong and New Zealand, at least, but was never repeated in the UK. Authorisation for the destruction of the 16mm masters was given when it was decided that the overseas commercial exploitation of the story was no longer viable[22].

A 16mm film print of the third episode was one of those found present at the BBC when the corporation’s Windmill Road Film Archive was audited in 1977. The origin of this telerecording is obscure[23], and it may reasonably be assumed to be an international sales print that was sent to Windmill Road in error, either by an overseas broadcaster or another BBC department, leading to it being safely archived from then on. (Then Archive Selector Anne Hanford has noted that staff at Windmill Road had an unofficial policy of archiving material sent to them in error if they knew or suspected that master copies did not exist elsewhere[24].)

Low-quality VHS copies of the episode were available to some of the better connected individuals in Doctor Who fandom by the end of the 1980s, and reviews in Doctor Who publications in that decade and the next from those who had seen it were not positive. In 1988 an article in Doctor Who Magazine (DWM) #144 saw the story officially sanctioned as one of the 10 worst Doctor Who serials of all, at a point where, as a rule, DWM didn’t overtly criticise any Doctor Who story, past or present, except in direct quotation in interview material or on the letters page. It’s ‘a classic tale of ineptitude and bad acting’ which ‘just gets worse and worse’[25], apparently. Particularly of note is the (anonymous) reviewer’s comment that a scene has to be ‘seen to be believed’ which ‘most of us never will’. The scene mentioned is from the known to be extant episode 3, reflecting the assumption that even old Doctor Who that existed was unlikely to ever to reach a wide audience again[26], except in book form. (Earlier that year Nigel Robinson’s new novelisation of the story was well reviewed, but by damning the story on which it is based in comparison.)

The Discontinuity Guide (1995), which elsewhere is indulging of stories it considers ‘fun’ or misjudged by fan history (e.g. The Gunfighters (1966) or The Horns of Nimon (1980)) writes it off as ‘The Doctor Who equivalent of Plan 9 from Outer Space’, and notes Joe Orton’s sexual interest, expressed in his diaries for the date of the last episode’s transmission[27], in at least one of the cast. The Second Doctor Handbook (1997) perhaps over-eggs the pudding by including three negative reviews of the story[28] which nevertheless all say much the same as each other:

‘far fetched and stretches credibility to the limit […] by far the poorest story of the Troughton era […] undoubtedly the weakest story of the Second Doctor’s era […] reminiscent of nothing so much as a poorly scripted, uninspired and low-budget B-movie.’[29]

Doctor Who fandom’s tendency to appeal to authority has diminished in the 21st century, partially due to generational shifts and partially due to the increased availability of Doctor Who itself[30], allowing for phases, even ‘movements’ in the appreciation and understanding of the series and its history, especially after production office documentation for the series slowly became available to fandom across the early 1990s, but neither of these processes seemed to give much succour to The Underwater Menace.

Episode 3 was not officially released on VHS until 1998 and then almost as an afterthought, as a ‘special bonus episode’ tagged onto the end of a documentary entitled The Missing Years; this was itself a special feature for the VHS release of the two-thirds-complete Troughton serial The Ice Warriors (1967). Frazer Hines’ introduction to the episode is jocular, mockingly containing the phrase ‘while Polly has narrowly avoided being turned into a fish’[31] and emphasising that the episode is the earliest surviving example of Troughton Who, and thus both Troughton’s and Hines’ own performances, available to audiences. Of the story itself, nothing is said. When the episode was included on Lost in Time, a 2004 DVD set of episodes of Doctor Who serials where half or fewer of the episodes existed[32], Hines’ intro was reused, but the episode was not considered worthy of coverage in any newly produced special features[33]. The contemporaneous book Who’s Next labels the story a ‘chore’, ‘the worst Doctor Who serial up to this point’ and ‘rubbish’[34].

There is, to be fair to every one of the story’s negative critics, certainly an argument that The Underwater Menace’s status as one of a handful of Doctor Who stories to lose viewers between every instalment supports the idea that contemporary viewers were equally unengaged by the serial[35]. So does the sole newspaper review of any episode. Ann Lawrence, writing in The Daily Worker, criticised the story mid-transmission saying:

‘The absurdity of the futurist stories in this series has always been noticeable. Somehow, however, William Hartnell’s Doctor always managed to give a certain dignity to the part, in spite of all the nonsense, and one could not help believing in him. Patrick Troughton’s Doctor Who is a clown, looking and acting like something out of the Marx brothers. Instead of modifying the nonsense, his interpretation heightens it. Still, he has my sympathies, wrestling with a script like that!’[36]

Poor quality audio-only copies of all four episodes, recorded when the serial was transmitted by contemporary viewers, had long circulated in Doctor Who fandom, even before high-quality recordings were donated to the BBC by Graham Strong in 1994. A CD of this was released a few weeks before Doctor Who’s television return in 2005, making it amongst the last Doctor Who serials to be made available publicly and legally in any form. DWM called it ‘old-fashioned, two-dimensional and a bit aimless’[37], albeit prefaced by some eloquently expressed regret at having to be so negative. There’s also something curiously symbolic about such comments being made about this, one of the last and least loved of 20th-century Doctor Who, with the series’ resurrected and distinctly not old-fashioned self waiting in the wings[38].

When DWM conducted a poll to mark the series’ reaching 200 television stories in 2009, the serial came in at 194th. Bottom 10. Nearly bottom five.[39] The following year’s About Time Volume 2 went through the serial with a two-footed man-not-the-ball tackle seemingly aimed at producer Innes Lloyd, which simultaneously asserted the story is ‘seriously all he thought Doctor Who was capable of being’ while also suggesting the producer ‘displays utter contempt for the audience’ because he thought ‘[w]e couldn’t tell the difference between something like this and something like The Power of the Daleks’ (a story also produced by Lloyd) before concluding, ‘It’s not so much that it isn’t trying, it’s that it doesn’t think we care that it isn’t trying.’[40] Despite a valiant attempt by Toby Hadoke and Rob Shearman to defend the story’s honour in their Running Through Corridors the same year[41], The Underwater Menace’s place, or rather lack of it, in Doctor Who history seemed set.

And then another episode surfaced.

[1]

These publications are also, of course, interpretations of the programme in and of themselves.

These publications are also, of course, interpretations of the programme in and of themselves.

[2]

E.g. The Doctor Who Monster Book (1975) contains a photograph labelled as being from ‘The Dead Planet’, the first episode of The Daleks (1963-64), but it is actually from the first attempt to record this episode; this was never transmitted due to technical problems with the recording, but the photograph informed fans’ idea of this episode when they could not see it.

E.g. The Doctor Who Monster Book (1975) contains a photograph labelled as being from ‘The Dead Planet’, the first episode of The Daleks (1963-64), but it is actually from the first attempt to record this episode; this was never transmitted due to technical problems with the recording, but the photograph informed fans’ idea of this episode when they could not see it.

[3]

The Doctor Who Appreciation Society, founded May 1976 at Westfield College, London.

The Doctor Who Appreciation Society, founded May 1976 at Westfield College, London.

[4]

Of which 11, of around 40, survive complete enough to be read.

Of which 11, of around 40, survive complete enough to be read.

[5]

Molesworth, Richard, Wiped! Doctor Who’s Missing Episodes, p83.

Molesworth, Richard, Wiped! Doctor Who’s Missing Episodes, p83.

[6]

Founded by teenager Keith Miller in 1972 to replace an earlier failed enterprise of the same or similar name run by Graham Tattersall, it was eventually superseded by the DWAS.

Founded by teenager Keith Miller in 1972 to replace an earlier failed enterprise of the same or similar name run by Graham Tattersall, it was eventually superseded by the DWAS.

[7]

Reprinted in Miller, Keith, The Official Doctor Who Fan Club Volume 1: The Jon Pertwee Years, p122.

Reprinted in Miller, Keith, The Official Doctor Who Fan Club Volume 1: The Jon Pertwee Years, p122.

[8]

Miller, The Official Doctor Who Fan Club Volume 1, p35.

Miller, The Official Doctor Who Fan Club Volume 1, p35.

[9]

Molesworth, Wiped! pp159, 189.

Molesworth, Wiped! pp159, 189.

[10]

The first three books in this series were reprints of 1960s novelisations, although the unavailability of these books by 1973 is reflected both in the decision to reprint them and said reprints’ sales being large enough to kickstart a range of new adaptations in their image.

The first three books in this series were reprints of 1960s novelisations, although the unavailability of these books by 1973 is reflected both in the decision to reprint them and said reprints’ sales being large enough to kickstart a range of new adaptations in their image.

[11]

Fridays 9 to 30 July 1971, all on BBC One at 18:20. It was later repeated on BBC Two (Tuesdays 16 to 30 November 1999 at 18:00, the first being a double bill of episodes 1 and 2) and BBC Four (Mondays 13 and 20 November 2006 at 19:10, two double bills).

Fridays 9 to 30 July 1971, all on BBC One at 18:20. It was later repeated on BBC Two (Tuesdays 16 to 30 November 1999 at 18:00, the first being a double bill of episodes 1 and 2) and BBC Four (Mondays 13 and 20 November 2006 at 19:10, two double bills).

[12] Including audiobook editions.

[13]

The Underwater Menace was budgeted at £10,962, The Moonbase at £10,999.

The Underwater Menace was budgeted at £10,962, The Moonbase at £10,999.

[14]

Although Davis’ scripts for Revenge of the Cybermen were extensively rewritten by his distant successor as Script Editor, Robert Holmes.

Although Davis’ scripts for Revenge of the Cybermen were extensively rewritten by his distant successor as Script Editor, Robert Holmes.

[15]

It seems, in fact, to have been Orme’s final work for film or television.

It seems, in fact, to have been Orme’s final work for film or television.

[16]

These were (the equally unfashionable in fandom) The Space Pirates (published 1990) plus the two David Whitaker scripted Dalek serials. The Dalek stories were delayed until 1993 for a variety of complex reasons.

These were (the equally unfashionable in fandom) The Space Pirates (published 1990) plus the two David Whitaker scripted Dalek serials. The Dalek stories were delayed until 1993 for a variety of complex reasons.

[17]

It is perhaps arguably the first serial in which Jamie McCrimmon is ‘a companion’, but as he has appeared throughout the previous serial The Highlanders (1966-67), this is a moot point.

It is perhaps arguably the first serial in which Jamie McCrimmon is ‘a companion’, but as he has appeared throughout the previous serial The Highlanders (1966-67), this is a moot point.

[18]

Later serials refer to Atlantis, but this is clearly both coincidental and unrelated.

Later serials refer to Atlantis, but this is clearly both coincidental and unrelated.

[19]

Julia Smith was, however, interviewed about her work on Doctor Who on more than one occasion.

Julia Smith was, however, interviewed about her work on Doctor Who on more than one occasion.

[20]

For discussions of the logistical problems in engaging with an entirely missing Doctor Who serial see Cooray Smith, James, The Black Archive #2: The Massacre and October, Dene, The Black Archive #18: Marco Polo.

For discussions of the logistical problems in engaging with an entirely missing Doctor Who serial see Cooray Smith, James, The Black Archive #2: The Massacre and October, Dene, The Black Archive #18: Marco Polo.

[21]

A wipe/junk authorisation form exists for the video tape masters of the first two episodes, dated 9 March 1967, a little more than a month after the serial completed transmission. It indicates that BBC Enterprises, who sold BBC TV programmes overseas, had ‘No Further Interest’ in exploiting the serial, having made 16mm copies for export. A second wipe/junk authorisation, this time for all four episodes and issued by the BBC Drama department, was made on 21 July 1969 and a third, again by BBC Enterprises and again for the first two episodes, on 22 September 1969. This should not be taken to imply there were three copies of the first two episodes (the authorisations are always for the same master tape), but that the authorisation of more than one department was required for a video tape master to be wiped for reuse, and erasure were not always carried out immediately upon authorisation being given. Certainly all four masters were wiped by the end of 1969.

A wipe/junk authorisation form exists for the video tape masters of the first two episodes, dated 9 March 1967, a little more than a month after the serial completed transmission. It indicates that BBC Enterprises, who sold BBC TV programmes overseas, had ‘No Further Interest’ in exploiting the serial, having made 16mm copies for export. A second wipe/junk authorisation, this time for all four episodes and issued by the BBC Drama department, was made on 21 July 1969 and a third, again by BBC Enterprises and again for the first two episodes, on 22 September 1969. This should not be taken to imply there were three copies of the first two episodes (the authorisations are always for the same master tape), but that the authorisation of more than one department was required for a video tape master to be wiped for reuse, and erasure were not always carried out immediately upon authorisation being given. Certainly all four masters were wiped by the end of 1969.

[22]

Molesworth, Wiped!, p111.

Molesworth, Wiped!, p111.

[23]

It has often been assumed that a desire to preserve the film sequence of the Fish People revolting led to episode 3 being retained as an example of the series, but this is not suggested by any BBC paperwork and this is probably snowballing fan assumption. It seems that no 1960s Doctor Who was successfully deliberately kept for such reasons; all the episodes that survive do so by serendipity.

It has often been assumed that a desire to preserve the film sequence of the Fish People revolting led to episode 3 being retained as an example of the series, but this is not suggested by any BBC paperwork and this is probably snowballing fan assumption. It seems that no 1960s Doctor Who was successfully deliberately kept for such reasons; all the episodes that survive do so by serendipity.

[24]

Molesworth, Wiped!, p87

Molesworth, Wiped!, p87

[25]

‘Twenty Five Years of Turkeys!’, DWM #144.

‘Twenty Five Years of Turkeys!’, DWM #144.

[26]

BBC Video had not yet committed, even internally, to releasing a complete library of old Doctor Who on VHS in 1988, and until some way into the next decade there was no intention to make episodes of incomplete stories available, it being perceived there was no market for them.

BBC Video had not yet committed, even internally, to releasing a complete library of old Doctor Who on VHS in 1988, and until some way into the next decade there was no intention to make episodes of incomplete stories available, it being perceived there was no market for them.

[27]

Cornell, Paul, Martin Day and Keith Topping, Doctor Who: The Discontinuity Guide, p70.

Cornell, Paul, Martin Day and Keith Topping, Doctor Who: The Discontinuity Guide, p70.

[28]

One by each of its three co-authors.

One by each of its three co-authors.

[29]

Howe, David J, Mark Stammers and Steven James Walker, The Second Doctor Handbook, p59-60. Ironically, at a cost of £13,140 against a budget of £10,962, The Underwater Menace is obviously cheaper than pretty much any theatrical feature, even one on the bottom of a bill.

Howe, David J, Mark Stammers and Steven James Walker, The Second Doctor Handbook, p59-60. Ironically, at a cost of £13,140 against a budget of £10,962, The Underwater Menace is obviously cheaper than pretty much any theatrical feature, even one on the bottom of a bill.

[30]

E.g. on VHS and later DVD releases, and via the repeats made possible by the expansion of satellite and cable television stations broadcasting to the UK, and the subsequent renegotiation of repeat terms by e.g. Equity. UK Gold broadcast every completely extant Doctor Who serial several times between 1991 and 2004.

E.g. on VHS and later DVD releases, and via the repeats made possible by the expansion of satellite and cable television stations broadcasting to the UK, and the subsequent renegotiation of repeat terms by e.g. Equity. UK Gold broadcast every completely extant Doctor Who serial several times between 1991 and 2004.

[31]

This is a reference to Polly’s line at the end of episode 1, ‘You’re not turning me into a fish!’ which, according to Anneke Wills, occasioned much hilarity from cast and crew during rehearsals, and was often repeated by the Troughton-Hines-Craze-Wills cast in rehearsals for subsequent serials.

This is a reference to Polly’s line at the end of episode 1, ‘You’re not turning me into a fish!’ which, according to Anneke Wills, occasioned much hilarity from cast and crew during rehearsals, and was often repeated by the Troughton-Hines-Craze-Wills cast in rehearsals for subsequent serials.

[32]

The set was, in part, put together in order to provide a product enabling the release of ‘Day of Armageddon’ (The Daleks’ Master Plan episode 2 (1965)), which had been recovered that year and which had therefore never been part of the VHS range.

The set was, in part, put together in order to provide a product enabling the release of ‘Day of Armageddon’ (The Daleks’ Master Plan episode 2 (1965)), which had been recovered that year and which had therefore never been part of the VHS range.

[33]

A few seconds of material from the other three episodes, recovered from Australia in 1996 and usually referred to as the ‘Australian Censor’s Clips’, were included along with those for several other serials. Of which more later.

A few seconds of material from the other three episodes, recovered from Australia in 1996 and usually referred to as the ‘Australian Censor’s Clips’, were included along with those for several other serials. Of which more later.

[34]

Robson, Eddie, Jim Smith and Mark Clapham, Who’s Next: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who, p85. This is by me, and to quote the Troughton Doctor in a much later story, ‘I am thoroughly repentant.’

Robson, Eddie, Jim Smith and Mark Clapham, Who’s Next: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who, p85. This is by me, and to quote the Troughton Doctor in a much later story, ‘I am thoroughly repentant.’

[35]

A counterpoint to that might be that this is the second Doctor serial with the sixth highest average audience overall (out of 21) with two of those above it the serials that immediately followed it, so it did no obvious harm to Doctor Who’s audience’s engagement more broadly.

A counterpoint to that might be that this is the second Doctor serial with the sixth highest average audience overall (out of 21) with two of those above it the serials that immediately followed it, so it did no obvious harm to Doctor Who’s audience’s engagement more broadly.

[36]

Lawrence, Ann, ‘Television’, Daily Worker January 25 1967.

Lawrence, Ann, ‘Television’, Daily Worker January 25 1967.

[37]

Bishop, Vanessa, ‘Off The Shelf’, DWM #353 February 2005.

Bishop, Vanessa, ‘Off The Shelf’, DWM #353 February 2005.

[38]

There is also an enjoyable irony in its simultaneously slipping out under the radar and being quite likely to be at the front of any shelves containing Doctor Who CDs spotted in an HMV or WH Smith visited by a child excited by Rose or The End of the World (both 2005).

There is also an enjoyable irony in its simultaneously slipping out under the radar and being quite likely to be at the front of any shelves containing Doctor Who CDs spotted in an HMV or WH Smith visited by a child excited by Rose or The End of the World (both 2005).

[39]

Griffiths, Peter, ‘The Mighty 200!’ DWM #413.

Griffiths, Peter, ‘The Mighty 200!’ DWM #413.

[40]

Wood, Tat, and Lawrence Miles, About Time Volume 2 1966-1969 – Seasons 4 to 6, p64.

Wood, Tat, and Lawrence Miles, About Time Volume 2 1966-1969 – Seasons 4 to 6, p64.

[41]

Shearman, Robert, and Toby Hadoke, Running Through Corridors Volume 1: The 60s - Rob and Toby’s Marathon Watch of Doctor Who, pp187-92.

Shearman, Robert, and Toby Hadoke, Running Through Corridors Volume 1: The 60s - Rob and Toby’s Marathon Watch of Doctor Who, pp187-92.

CHAPTER 2: ‘HOPE IT’S THE DALEKS!’

On 18 April 1987 the third episode of the 1967 Doctor Who serial The Faceless Ones was screened, unannounced in advance[1], at TellyCon, a general archive television convention held in Birmingham. At that point, the episode was missing from the BBC archive and only a handful of people were aware of its existence[2]. It was a beautiful coup, which quickly became the stuff of Doctor Who fan legend[3] and which prompted, by all accounts, a rush and then a queue for the venue’s small number of pay phones at the end of the screening, as excited fans rushed to tell others what they’d seen.

Given Doctor Who fandom’s tendency towards mythmaking generally, and the involvement of some of the same people specifically, it is impossible to believe that this event was not in the minds of those who arranged for a similar thing to happen at the British Film Institute on London’s South Bank on Sunday 11 December 2011. The BFI hosts regular ‘Missing Believed Wiped’ events, devoted to the screening of recently recovered archive television, and the centrepiece of that day’s event, as announced, was Dennis Potter’s Emergency Ward 9 (1966) , with producer Kenith Trodd in attendance.

But both the description of the second of that day’s MBW sessions in the BFI’s monthly programme and a press release stated coyly that ‘one thing we can promise is a special treat for sci-fi fans’, and in the days immediately before the event, rumours spread among some Doctor Who fans that this phrase referred to something Doctor Who-related, although it was later said that no one seemed aware of, or prepared to give out any details.

Towards the end of that second session, Mark Gatiss[4] took to the stage before the screen in NFT1, the screen at BFI Southbank in which MBW takes place, and began to talk about the number of missing Doctor Who episodes[5], confirming those rumours, which had reached fever pitch in the BFI Southbank’s two bars between sessions. Without naming the episode about to be shown, Gatiss introduced ‘Air Lock’ (episode 3 of Galaxy 4), to some gasps from the audience, the opening shot being the first moving pictures of the serial’s Rill creatures seen in public in the UK since autumn 1965. The episode was faded down after a few minutes, to mournful sounds from the audience. Gatiss assured the audience that ‘Air Lock’ was complete, and that there was more to be shown than the few minutes that had been seen[6].

Then he introduced, again without naming it, another episode which he promised would be screened in its entirety once he finished speaking. Both episodes had been in the collection of Terry Burnett, a retired television professional and film collector, for many years, apparently without him knowing they were unique. Gatiss introduced Burnett, who joined him on stage to tell his own story before the episode was screened. For the second time in under half an hour the audience began a mad guessing game as to what the episode they were about to see was. The original title sequence meant that it had to be an episode from before The Macra Terror (1967), and was not an episode of The Smugglers (1966)[7].

There was a ripple of laughter from the Doctor Who literate section of the audience as the episode proper began[8] and the caption card came up. (A friend who was sitting next to me in the audience joked ‘I can’t believe they’ve found The Underwater Menace episode 1!’ as the lights went down and was genuinely stunned to be only a week out.) Once the episode finished, to a round of applause later described by then DWM editor Tom Spilsbury as ‘certainly the biggest round of applause that The Underwater Menace is ever likely to get’[9], people filed out of NFT1 to communicate the news. The queue for phone boxes in 1987 was replaced by a queue for the bar in which many people were emailing or texting from their mobile phones. By the evening, the discovery was on BBC news[10].

It is important here to distinguish Doctor Who’s overall audience from its fans. By 2011, an episode of Doctor Who had been one of the 10 most watched TV programmes of the year for five out of the last six years. Essentially, anything connected with it was newsworthy. A guarantee of clicks, if not necessarily viewing figures. Which makes what happened to The Underwater Menace episode 2 next even odder.

At the BFI Dan Hall, then in charge of Doctor Who DVD releases for the BBC owned company 2entertain, had said:

‘I would rather find the best way to release it that would do the programme the content the most justice, rather than just bring it out willy-nilly as quickly as possible. Though I imagine we’ll bring it out as quickly as possible, in a way that will service the material as well as we can service it.’[11]

Yet, while ‘Air Lock’ would be released on DVD in March 2013[12], The Underwater Menace episode 2 would have to wait until October 2015 for an audience larger than 450 people[13], nearly four years after the episode had been recovered and screened.

At the time the Doctor Who DVD range assets were delivered approximately a year ahead of release, and initial rumours suggested a late 2012 or early 2013 release of The Underwater Menace paired with The Moonbase[14] in a double pack, with both stories having their two missing episodes represented by newly commissioned animations synced to the off-air soundtracks[15].

A single DVD of The Moonbase, with its first and third episodes animated, was eventually released in January 2014, having initially been announced for late 2013. But of The Underwater Menace, there was no sign, despite special features[16] and even (glorious) cover art being prepared for the release. In August 2015 DWM reported that, following the bankruptcy of Qurios, the company expected to create the animated versions of episodes 1 and 4, the release had been cancelled.[17]

While Qurios’ troubles were responsible for the sinking of The Underwater Menace DVD, even much of Doctor Who fandom had moved on from the story by 2015. The recovery of two single episodes from less celebrated Doctor Who serials in late 2011 had been quickly eclipsed by the recovery of nine further episodes from two other serials, The Enemy of the World (1967-68) and The Web of Fear (1968)[18] in 2013, all of which managed to be released on DVD before The Underwater Menace episode 2.

A BFI Missing Believed Wiped event on 1 December 2013 at the Edinburgh Filmhouse saw an episode of The Web of Fear screened. It had been recovered more recently than The Underwater Menace, but was already available on iTunes and Virgin Media on demand, and scheduled for release on DVD in February 2014. Presumably it was considered to be a more glamorous choice, The Underwater Menace’s status as an unloved hard luck case being still undisputed. It is tempting to see, in decisions like this, Doctor Who’s fan hierarchy asserting itself. This is undoubtedly something which has happened on other occasions, and is perhaps a side-effect of the involvement of long-term Doctor Who fans, inevitably aware of fan history, argot and consensus to at least some extent, in almost all aspects of the series and its merchandising in the new century. Especially with The Underwater Menace being routed by its old bedfellow and nemesis The Moonbase. More likely, though, it’s the opposite, although the ultimate result was the same. DWM would later imply that figures at BBC Worldwide unconnected with Doctor Who fandom queried the point of the release[19], asking whether anyone would buy a full-price DVD containing only one episode they didn’t already own[20] – a problem that was exacerbated by the issue of how to present the two missing episodes without incurring significant cost.

Following repeated queries from DWM, other individuals within BBC Worldwide and the then Doctor Who production team, the DVD was rescheduled for Monday 26 October 2015. Episodes 1 and 4 were represented by basic ‘reconstructions’ rather than animations, the off-air soundtracks presented with the tele-snaps for the episodes as accompanying visual material. As the last episode of 20th century Doctor Who to be released on DVD, and the end[21] of a DVD range that had begun in 1999, many regarded both the story and its presentation as a damp squib to finish on, despite the obvious excitement for most fans in finally being able to see a previously unavailable 25 minutes of monochrome Doctor Who.

‘Watch the doughnut, not the hole,’ Gatiss had quipped at the initial BFI screening, referring to a bizarre song that had featured in another item screened that day. He can’t possibly have known that in the immediate future, very few were going to be given the chance to even try.

[1]

Fliers for the convention had promised rare Doctor Who material, but offered no specifics; those there on the day remember the episode being introduced as ‘a tribute to Patrick Troughton’. The actor had died on March 28, exactly three weeks before.

Fliers for the convention had promised rare Doctor Who material, but offered no specifics; those there on the day remember the episode being introduced as ‘a tribute to Patrick Troughton’. The actor had died on March 28, exactly three weeks before.

[2]

It was subsequently returned. For a fuller account of the recovery of this episode, please consult Molesworth, Wiped!, pp221-22.

It was subsequently returned. For a fuller account of the recovery of this episode, please consult Molesworth, Wiped!, pp221-22.

[3]

With entirely unplanned synchronicity, the novelisation of the story was published in paperback four weeks later, enabling any attendees to find out what happened after the credits rolled.

With entirely unplanned synchronicity, the novelisation of the story was published in paperback four weeks later, enabling any attendees to find out what happened after the credits rolled.

[4]

Mark Gatiss, actor, writer, producer and director, with many connections with Doctor Who both professional and personal.

Mark Gatiss, actor, writer, producer and director, with many connections with Doctor Who both professional and personal.

[5]

Then thought to be 108.

Then thought to be 108.

[6]

‘Air Lock’ was included in its entirety in the next MBW almost exactly a year later, with advance billing this time.

‘Air Lock’ was included in its entirety in the next MBW almost exactly a year later, with advance billing this time.

[7] The surviving tele-snaps for which suggest it boasted a unique inverted title sequence.

[8]

This being a general television event, with no advance warning of the Doctor Who content meant that many of the audience were not Doctor Who fans specifically. I was there, but I’d booked for Dennis Potter.

This being a general television event, with no advance warning of the Doctor Who content meant that many of the audience were not Doctor Who fans specifically. I was there, but I’d booked for Dennis Potter.

[9]

DWM Special Edition The Missing Episodes: The Second Doctor Volume One, p 114.

DWM Special Edition The Missing Episodes: The Second Doctor Volume One, p 114.

[10]

E.g. ‘Missing Doctor Who Episodes Found’.

E.g. ‘Missing Doctor Who Episodes Found’.

[11]

‘BFI screen long missing Doctor Who episodes’

‘BFI screen long missing Doctor Who episodes’

[12]

Albeit as an unheralded special feature on a reissue of The Aztecs (1964).

Albeit as an unheralded special feature on a reissue of The Aztecs (1964).

[13]

The capacity of NFT1, although copies were circulating amongst some in Doctor Who fandom within weeks of the screening. There was also a private screening in Cardiff attended by members of the 2011 and 1967 Doctor Who production teams, representatives of Doctor Who Magazine, etc.

The capacity of NFT1, although copies were circulating amongst some in Doctor Who fandom within weeks of the screening. There was also a private screening in Cardiff attended by members of the 2011 and 1967 Doctor Who production teams, representatives of Doctor Who Magazine, etc.

[14]

The two extant episodes of The Moonbase had been released on Lost in Time alongside The Underwater Menace episode 3.

The two extant episodes of The Moonbase had been released on Lost in Time alongside The Underwater Menace episode 3.

[15]

This had been practice for partially missing Doctor Who serials since the DVD release of The Invasion (1968) in 2006.

This had been practice for partially missing Doctor Who serials since the DVD release of The Invasion (1968) in 2006.

[16]

The documentaries on the disc as eventually released carry a © 2013 indicia.

The documentaries on the disc as eventually released carry a © 2013 indicia.

[17]

‘The Doctors – RE-MASTERED! Part 3’, DWM #488.

‘The Doctors – RE-MASTERED! Part 3’, DWM #488.

[18]

‘Missing Doctor Who Episodes Found’.

‘Missing Doctor Who Episodes Found’.

[19]

‘The Doctors - RE-MASTERED! Part 3’ DWM #488, Gallifrey Guardian DWM #491, The DWM Review DWM #492

‘The Doctors - RE-MASTERED! Part 3’ DWM #488, Gallifrey Guardian DWM #491, The DWM Review DWM #492

[20]

This is not a query anyone familiar with Doctor Who fans would make, and presumably the reason for the sticker affixed to the cover of the eventual release, reading ‘INCLUDES PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED EPISODE’.

This is not a query anyone familiar with Doctor Who fans would make, and presumably the reason for the sticker affixed to the cover of the eventual release, reading ‘INCLUDES PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED EPISODE’.

[21] At least, in the absence of any future discoveries of previously missing material.

CHAPTER 3: ‘PLEASE LET IT BE [...] 1966.’

When The Underwater Menace was written and shot, Doctor Who had been in a state of at best continual flux and at worst ongoing crisis for at least a year. Fan tradition likes to emphasise the renewal brought about by the arrival of, in quick succession, script editor Gerry Davis, producer Innes Lloyd and star Patrick Troughton, but this simplifies matters to the point of distortion. The start of Doctor Who’s fourth production block, the first Lloyd was in sole charge of and the first in which Troughton appeared, saw hurried and very late rewriting required for every story to go before the cameras.

The Tenth Planet (1966) had been rewritten as a swansong for William Hartnell’s Doctor and then its third episode had been hurriedly redrafted[1] when Hartnell became unavailable. The Power of the Daleks required the temporary return of former Story Editor Dennis Spooner to the role (in addition to work performed by Davis in that capacity and rewrites by credited writer David Whitaker). The Highlanders (1966-67), made before The Underwater Menace but commissioned and initially intended to be made after it, was written by Davis after the contracted writer, BBC executive Elwyn Jones, failed to deliver any material at all, and was scripted with such urgency that all the necessary paperwork surrounding Davis’ commission was delayed until after most of the story had been made.

The writing and production of The Underwater Menace reflects this instability behind the scenes and its nature as a product of, in the words of its eventual director, ‘a stressful period, a period of uncertainty and stress in the development of the programme’[2].

The Underwater Menace was commissioned on Tuesday 16 August after the Doctor Who production office had rejected an earlier storyline ‘Dr Who and the Evil Eye’, from the same writer, British film veteran Geoffrey Orme. At this point, the title was ‘Doctor Who Under The Sea’. Director Hugh David, assigned to the serial, which was expected to be the second Troughton serial (production code FF), had serious misgivings about the subject matter. He contacted people who had worked on the James Bond film Thunderball (1965) for advice. He was told in no uncertain terms that the storyline was not realisable on Doctor Who’s budget of £10,962 for four episodes. He later said the story ‘landed on my desk. I didn’t do it […] I said I wouldn’t do that. Because I really couldn’t do it. You can’t just take a little tank at Ealing and pretend that you’re in the middle of the Atlantic indefinitely.’[3] David requested, and was granted, the opportunity to direct The Highlanders instead, with that story now becoming FF in ‘Doctor Who Under The Sea’’s place. In an interesting coincidence, Geoffrey Orme had co-written The Boy on the Bridge (1959) with Thunderball producer Kevin McClory[4].

With the now-retitled ‘Dr Who and the Fish People’ requiring rewrites, that would mean it would not be ready in time to be Serial GG either, a replacement for the Jones-Davis’ historical was required. This was ‘Dr Who and the Imps’, commissioned from William Emms[5] on 16 October, and quickly delivered on 31 October, a day ahead of schedule. These scripts were also not to Lloyd and Davis’ liking, possibly due to the absurd speed with which they had been written. Despite GG’s assigned director Julia Smith making plans for the serial’s titular creatures with costumier Sandra Reid and make up designer Gillian James, the story was pushed back to be Serial HH on 9 November, in part because Emms had fallen ill and was unable to rewrite his episodes quickly enough to make the production schedule. Although it lingered on Doctor Who’s books until early in the new year, Emms’ story would never be made[6].

This led to the resurrection of Orme’s story, which went through multiple drafts in a short space of time[7], with a flurry of memos between Orme and Davis which survive to indicate the story’s evolution. Two female characters, one called Ebon and the market stallholder Nola (who retains a small part in episode 3) had their roles eliminated and downsized respectively, in order to give Ara more to do. Also lost was a female scientist called Steen, whose role may have been combined with Damon’s[8], with the latter certainly picking up some scenes from the unnamed Labour Controller seen at the end of episode 1[9].

It has often been noted, with justification, that Polly is weakly written in this serial – there is a suggestion she is afraid of the dark at the start of the second episode[10], and she was written as fainting with shock in episode 3, something that didn’t make the final recording despite being in the camera script, probably due to Anneke Wills’ own intervention. But it was the Doctor Who production office, rather than the serial’s author, who slimmed down the number and diversity of female speaking roles in the serial from five to three, only two of whom appear in more than one episode. In light of the generally low number of female characters in Doctor Who stories in late 1966 and early 1967, these eliminations seem especially unfortunate in retrospect. The Smugglers (1966) is the first Doctor Who story to have both guest characters and no female characters outside the regular cast, and The Tenth Planet is the second. The Moonbase is the third. As scripted, The Underwater Menace has more speaking roles for women than any story since Galaxy 4. Wills later noted that this aspect of the serial was ‘nice’ given how often on Doctor Who ‘for weeks and weeks it was all blokes’[11].

Nigel Robinson’s 1988 novelisation of The Underwater Menace retains the Labour Controller as a character separate from Damon. It also omits Ramo from the events of episode 1. Intriguingly, one of Davis’ requests of Orme for the new version of episode 1 ultimately delivered on 27 November was to make Ramo’s defection to the Doctor’s party in episode 2 more plausible. Perhaps his earlier introduction, meaning a meeting with the Doctor before the attempt to win him to the Doctor’s cause, was meant to facilitate this? It is tempting to conjecture that these multiple points of resemblance indicate that Robinson was working from a draft of the script extant in 1987 but no longer represented in the BBC Written Archive at Caversham, but this is not the case[12]. The final scripts, which represent the final version of the serial as written, were locked in early December and issued to the cast on the 8th[13].

Children, and even some adults, tend to assume that films and television n episodes are made in the order in which they are shown. This is not, and has never really been, the case for films[14], but it was largely the case for 1960s British television. Doctor Who was recorded episodically on Saturday nights after a week of rehearsals, and the episodes were largely ‘run through’ in story order[15]. The exception to this was any material which was recorded on film, rather than video tape. This was most usually location scenes, but could also encompass studio scenes requiring special effects or fire and water, which could not easily be encompassed within a television studio dependent on mains electricity. This is explicitly referred to in a note from director Julia Smith, appended to the scripts as sent to the cast, which asks them to concentrate on learning the film sequences, both location and studio, as these will be shot in advance of studio recording.

The Underwater Menace saw two days of location filming for sequences on the islet, principally for the first episode but also a few for the fourth. This was conducted at Windspit Caves, Dorset, and required the regular cast, plus PG Stephens (Sean) and Paul Anil (Jacko) on the second day (Tuesday 13 December) only, the day being devoted to establishing shots requiring no on-camera artistes, leaving the cast to rehearse in London in the morning and travel down to the location in the afternoon.

This was followed by three further days of pre-filming, at the BBC’s Television Film Studios, at Ealing[16]. Only one of these days, Friday, required the regular cast[17]. But this meant that some of them had missed three days of the week’s rehearsals for the Saturday night recording of The Highlanders episode 3. This was an inevitable consequence of Doctor Who’s increasingly elaborate pre-filming requirements and its tight weekly studio schedule, and the situation was about to get even worse. While the regular cast did manage to rehearse their adventures in 18th-century Scotland, Wednesday 13 was devoted to model work, chiefly for the first and last episodes, and the climactic drowning of Zaroff for episode 4[18]. Joseph Furst later commented that the extensive drowning sequence:

‘had to be done in reverse order, we started with the drowning first, then I dashed out and got dried off and my hair had got blow dried and they had let out the water to a certain extent. Quite an experience…’[19]

Anneke Wills recalls the cast being concerned that Hugh David, who was widely respected, ‘didn’t want to touch’[20] the story, and that Troughton was unhappy with both the scripts and being directed by Julia Smith. Despite Wills’ own enthusiasm for being directed by a woman, and one whom she’d enjoyed working for on The Smugglers, she let Troughton’s view of the director prevail and most involved report rehearsals as not a particularly comfortable experience. Smith would later play this down when interviewed about the series in the 1980s, describing making the serial as ‘[g]reat fun’ while acknowledging ‘[t]here might have been a lot more going on backstage than I was aware of’ [21] and comparing it unfavourably with The Smugglers.

Hines later recalled the serial saying he was ‘the new boy, and felt like a new boy’. The story was sufficiently unmemorable to Wills that she managed to move to the vicinity of the serial’s location filming, and arrange to have her 60th birthday party in the pub/hotel the production had used as a base, and in which the actors had stayed overnight, without realising she had visited either before[22].

Attempts to keep Doctor Who on its already fraught schedule failed when the planned recording for the first episode was cancelled. This gave the cast a much needed week off. (They had even worked on the evening of Christmas Eve, which was a Saturday.) It was a relief for all concerned, but also made Doctor Who’s schedule unmanageably tight; leaving no room for those errors which would inevitably occur. Eight weeks later serious sound issues were found with the studio master recording for The Moonbase episode 4. This had happened at least once before on Doctor Who and in the same studio (Lime Grove D), with ‘The Dead Planet’ (1963), the opening episode of the first Dalek serial, The Daleks. Then the episode was re-recorded four weeks later. On this occasion, there was simply no time and the faulty episode was transmitted.

All this was, like the story it tells, in the very near future when the first episode of The Underwater Menace finally went before the cameras a week later than intended; sneaking into the New Year, on 6 January 1967.

[1]

The original version, the Doctor playing a larger role in events, is retained in Gerry Davis’s novelisation.

The original version, the Doctor playing a larger role in events, is retained in Gerry Davis’s novelisation.

[2]

‘Julia Smith’ DWM Autumn Special, 1987.

‘Julia Smith’ DWM Autumn Special, 1987.

[3]

‘Hugh David’, DWM Summer Special, 1986.

‘Hugh David’, DWM Summer Special, 1986.

[4]

Strikingly, this film – and specifically its underwater photography – was what made Ian Fleming want to work with McClory, leading to their collaborative proposals for an original James Bond film story, and Fleming’s novelisation of them as Thunderball (1961), which was subsequently adapted to film.

Strikingly, this film – and specifically its underwater photography – was what made Ian Fleming want to work with McClory, leading to their collaborative proposals for an original James Bond film story, and Fleming’s novelisation of them as Thunderball (1961), which was subsequently adapted to film.

[5]

William Emms was an Australian born television writer who had scripted Galaxy 4. Other credits of a career in television almost entirely eliminated by archive policies include Callan (1967-72) (two episodes, one extant – ‘God Help Your Friends’) and Ace of Wands (1970-72) (one four-episode serial, no episodes extant). As noted in Chapter 2, the second episode of Galaxy 4 was recovered at the same time as the second episode of The Underwater Menace in 2011.

William Emms was an Australian born television writer who had scripted Galaxy 4. Other credits of a career in television almost entirely eliminated by archive policies include Callan (1967-72) (two episodes, one extant – ‘God Help Your Friends’) and Ace of Wands (1970-72) (one four-episode serial, no episodes extant). As noted in Chapter 2, the second episode of Galaxy 4 was recovered at the same time as the second episode of The Underwater Menace in 2011.

[6]

It was later adapted by Emms as Mission to Venus, one of the Find Your Fate With Doctor Who series of game books published in 1985. This is not quite as random as it sounds. Emms had shortly before novelised Galaxy 4, and publisher Ballantine contacted several writers who had recently written for Target Books to see if they were interested in working on the series.

It was later adapted by Emms as Mission to Venus, one of the Find Your Fate With Doctor Who series of game books published in 1985. This is not quite as random as it sounds. Emms had shortly before novelised Galaxy 4, and publisher Ballantine contacted several writers who had recently written for Target Books to see if they were interested in working on the series.

[7]

see Appendix B: Production Timeline.

see Appendix B: Production Timeline.

[8]

A costume department document dated 18 November requests costume for Steen for episodes 1 and possibly 4, while Damon is expected only to be in episodes 1 and 2. As Damon features throughout the finished serial, this seems a reasonable guess.

A costume department document dated 18 November requests costume for Steen for episodes 1 and possibly 4, while Damon is expected only to be in episodes 1 and 2. As Damon features throughout the finished serial, this seems a reasonable guess.

[9] Combining Damon and the Labour Controller not only saves an actor, it reduces the number of sets. Damon sends Ben and Jamie to the mines, and then initiates the operation on Polly, rather than the Labour Controller sending Polly to Damon’s laboratory. Similarly, Zaroff is meant to be in his own laboratory when he reads the Doctor’s note, but with that large set not available until episode 2’s recording the script indicates that this should be done in close-up on the ‘small chamber’ set containing the lift seen earlier in episode 1.

[10]

A direct contradiction of her being astonished Kirstie is afraid of the dark in The Highlanders.

A direct contradiction of her being astonished Kirstie is afraid of the dark in The Highlanders.

[11]

‘A Fishy Tale’ (DVD extra).

‘A Fishy Tale’ (DVD extra).

[12] However, the novelisation also has numerous points where the dialogue is rendered as delivered, rather than as scripted, and Robinson has confirmed that he worked from an audio copy of the serial. This provides an alternative explanation; it is not necessarily clear that Damon and the Labour Controller are the same person from audio alone. (Nigel Robinson, private correspondence, 7 March 2020).

[13] They are included as PDFs on later CD releases of the serial.

[14]

There are exceptions. The first two Harry Potter films, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), were largely shot in narrative order. Much earlier, single reel silent films were inherently shot in narrative order as dictated by the form.

There are exceptions. The first two Harry Potter films, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), were largely shot in narrative order. Much earlier, single reel silent films were inherently shot in narrative order as dictated by the form.

[15]

The Underwater Menace episode 4 offers a relatively early exception to this rule; its final scene, in the TARDIS console room, was recorded first, followed by the rest of the episode in story sequence. Given the large amount of pre-filming in the episode’s final minutes, this meant the regular cast could be released before the guest cast.

The Underwater Menace episode 4 offers a relatively early exception to this rule; its final scene, in the TARDIS console room, was recorded first, followed by the rest of the episode in story sequence. Given the large amount of pre-filming in the episode’s final minutes, this meant the regular cast could be released before the guest cast.

[16]

Exactly what Hugh David had said the production could not do. Although the production overspent by £3,000, nearly a third of its budget, demonstrating he had a point.

Exactly what Hugh David had said the production could not do. Although the production overspent by £3,000, nearly a third of its budget, demonstrating he had a point.

[17]

The afternoon was devoted to an action sequence where Jamie nearly falls off a cliff, featured in the now recovered episode 2.

The afternoon was devoted to an action sequence where Jamie nearly falls off a cliff, featured in the now recovered episode 2.

[18]

A few seconds of this sequence survive, having been removed by Australian censors before the story was transmitted there. See Chapter 4.

A few seconds of this sequence survive, having been removed by Australian censors before the story was transmitted there. See Chapter 4.

[19]

Interview with Furst for the Australian fanzine Sonic Screwdriver, quoted in Howe, Stammers and Walker, The Second Doctor Handbook, p58.

Interview with Furst for the Australian fanzine Sonic Screwdriver, quoted in Howe, Stammers and Walker, The Second Doctor Handbook, p58.

[20]

‘A Fishy Tale’.

‘A Fishy Tale’.

[21]

‘Julia Smith’.

‘Julia Smith’.

[22]

‘A Fishy Tale’.

‘A Fishy Tale’.

CHAPTER 4: ‘WHAT HAVE I COME UPON?’

Writing in DWM almost immediately after the BFI screening of The Underwater Menace episode 2, the magazine’s former editor Gary Gillatt noted that it (and the simultaneous recovery, ‘Air Lock’) would have been ‘near the bottom’ of any list made by fans, individually or collectively, of which episodes they would like to have unexpectedly returned. Conversely, he felt, this relieved any fan anxiety over whether the returned episodes would live up to expectations, because very few people even had any expectations. This meant that the episodes could simply be enjoyed for what they were, Doctor Who which none of us had ever expected to see:

‘roundly entertaining examples of well-made, low-budget, studio-bound Doctor Who. And with no weight of history or hyped expectation to distract us, we can see the fundamental fabric of our programme showing through.’

Gillatt’s cheerful, thoughtful assessment of both newly recovered episodes concentrated, appropriately, on things about them that simply could not properly be gleaned from their soundtracks and surviving photographs, and he noted the ‘countless nuances of performance that could never be guessed from an audio recording alone’[1]. He also found time to note that the serials’ companions were ‘stunning’ and ‘boyband beautiful’ respectively. This is no shallow observation, and reflects the strange truth that this cheapish children’s series, over-budget, behind schedule and crashing in the ratings, starred bright young things who went on to some of the coolest night spots in 60s London after they finished shooting episodes on Saturday nights.

As such it casually resituates episode 2 back in its original context, and also reminds us of the strange fact that these episodes mark the point where Ben and Polly begin to be marginalised in favour of the newly introduced Jamie. The point where they, and all that they represent, start to be pushed out. On the Tuesday after the Saturday that episode 3 was recorded, David Whitaker was commissioned to write The Evil of the Daleks (1967), at that point intended as the story that would write out Ben and Polly. That Wednesday Michael Craze’s contract was extended for a final time, for 12 episodes beginning with Serial JJ[2]. In the end he (and Wills)[3] would appear only in seven, the last of which only features them in a filmed location sequence shot a month before.

The Underwater Menace finds Doctor Who removing itself from the contemporary space it had fought so hard to occupy the previous summer. Soon the Doctor would be accompanied not by upwardly mobile young adults from the present, implicitly a romantic couple who had met in a nightclub in ‘swinging London’, but by characters often described in future scripts as ‘children’, characters from a picture book history past, a Jacobite and a Victorian, both emblematically named, after their cause and their era respectively. This is probably not connected to The Underwater Menace’s curious setting an entirely unnecessary[4] three or four years in the future, one which is stated in dialogue and then picked over, but combined they add to the feeling that the contemporary is something that Doctor Who is now keen to escape[5]. It is interesting to speculate that this may be connected with complaints made by BBC executives, and in Lloyd’s presence, at the BBC Programme Review Board meeting on 18 January that Troughton’s Doctor was ‘too human’ and ‘too with it’. Had Ben and Polly, conceived as a contemporary contrast to William Hartnell’s grandfatherly figure, become redundant now the series lead was a Beatle-fringed agent of chaos?

Something else which is obvious when viewing all the extant material is how misplaced frequent fan comparisons between the story and the James Bond film series are. These were perhaps prompted by the mad scientist villain, underwater setting and ‘destroy the world’ plot, but despite The Underwater Menace’s strange step-sibling relationship with James Bond (see Chapter 3) there are differences between them so pronounced as to make any comparison largely meaningless. All the Bond films in which the villain’s central plot is destroying the world, or all life on it, postdate The Underwater Menace[6], and in all three, the mad scientist villain intends to repopulate an Earth that has been cleansed of humans by a catastrophe they have caused, rather than to destroy the planet completely. Nothing about how the Doctor Who story unfolds resembles Bond in either his film or literary incarnations.

If we look at episode 2 in isolation, as Gillatt did, and concentrate on its visuals, it opens some interesting areas and offers some paradoxical strangeness. Julia Smith’s directorial work, both here and elsewhere, is notable for a certain literal-mindedness. It is probably not coincidental that she largely chose to work in the ostensibly realistic – or at least mimetic – genre of soap opera. Here, in the mines of the ancient Kingdom of Atlantis, we get modern hospital curtains, miners’ hats[7] and lamps, pick axes and jackets with luminous strips. This is not what anyone who had only seen episode 3, with its strong elements of fantasia, would expect episode 2’s mines to look like. And yet they do[8].

Overall, though, episode 2 is a noticeably stronger production than episode 3. This may well be a side effect of how the programme was produced. Might it be argued that the noticeably slicker episode 2 is so exactly because episode 3 was produced the week that the pre-filming for the next serial The Moonbase took the regular cast out of rehearsals, therefore depriving Smith and her cast of valuable preparation time?

Other striking features of episode 2 when watched alone include its disabusing fans of the assumption that the creature Zaroff was feeding unseen in episode 2 was his octopus, mentioned at the end of episode 1 (it is a rather small fish in a tank). It is also made clear that Zaroff’s map of Atlantis, which he uses to demonstrate to the Doctor how he will destroy both city and planet, has the lift through which the TARDIS crew have accessed Atlantis marked on it. Which means that it cannot be a secret to, at least, Zaroff’s scientists. This, of course, raises the question as to why the Atlanteans do not simply leave their warren of caves for the outside world?[9] (Although it seems curiously obvious onscreen that the ‘the natural air shaft provided by the extinct volcano’ to which Zaroff refers is also the location of his lift, in a way that it simply isn’t on the page or on audio.)

The failure to release The Underwater Menace on DVD for such a protracted period meant that Gillatt’s review largely existed in a vacuum, rather than being the vanguard of a series of fan engagements with this new old episode. As noted in Chapter 1, in the ‘Mighty 200’ survey DWM undertook in 2009, which allowed fans to rate every Doctor Who television story ever made, The Underwater Menace came in the bottom 10. In a 50th anniversary survey conducted in 2013, after episode 2’s recovery but before its release, it came 224th out of 241 stories[10]. That’s a very slight improvement, and probably not unrelated to Gillatt’s own positivity and the serial’s increased prominence, despite its inaccessibility for most fans.

The Underwater Menace episode 2 was not strictly the first archive discovery related to this story. A previously unknown set of tele-snaps for the serial were discovered to exist in the BBC Written Archive in 1993[11] and were quickly published in DWM[12], giving fans a better idea of the serial’s visuals. Then, in 1996, a few snippets from the serial, totalling under a minute, were discovered in Australia. They consisted of 14 seconds from episode 1, four separate clips (2s, 3s, 7s, 8s) from episode 2, and 3 seconds from the climax of episode 4[13]. They existed because, when it was showing Doctor Who in the 1960s, Australian broadcaster ABC often had required material to be removed in order for the series to meet its broadcast standards. The offending moments were literally physically cut from the transmission prints and then filed away. Thanks to the diligent work by Doctor Who fan Damian Shanahan, clips from The Underwater Menace were found to still exist and they were scanned and copies returned to the BBC. These were included on the 1998 VHS release The Missing Years and the 2004 DVD Lost in Time.

All of the 1995 recovered clips from episode 2 come from the opening of the episode, while the 14 seconds from episode 1 are from the cliffhanger which the opening of episode 2 builds on. Together they form a near continuous piece of action which is also one of the most dramatically successful scenes in the serial: Polly is threatened with being operated on and turned into a fish person. While fan historiography frequently returns to the idea that the Cybermen represent the ultimate in body horror, here in this serial, far less well regarded than The Moonbase or The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967), is arguably a far more effective evocation of their ostensible USP than in any story actually featuring them until World Enough and Time (2017), more than 50 years later.

The very first shot of the recovered episode, and a moment the ABC chose to cut, is a meticulous close-up of a needle, while Anneke Wills plays Polly’s bravery and horror very well, a performance matched by Colin Jeavons’ bloodless, baleful Damon. His cold determination and condescension justify her short, ragged, terrified breaths. We then cut away to jolly, lightly played chat between the Doctor and Zaroff, before returning to the operating theatre for several more seconds of straightforward horror, with the way Damon’s subordinates manhandle Polly particularly grim. When Damon leaves the room to complain to Zaroff about his working conditions, leaving Polly to be further brutalised, the audience is forced to confront the rather uncomfortable fact that the amusing man that the Doctor is talking to is responsible for what is happening to his friend.

This material was not simply strong enough to be removed before transmission of the episode in Australia, it also provoked a letter of complaint to the Doctor Who office from a UK viewer that is preserved in the story’s production file. Mrs N Safford of the National Society for the Welfare of Children in Hospitals wrote in a professional capacity on Monday 16 January, noting that 5,000 children in the UK were due to have some sort of hospital procedure in the week between episodes 1 and 2, and that that week’s Doctor Who would needlessly alarm them. Lloyd replied that it was obvious that the situation was fantasy, and that he did not believe children would link what happens to Polly with anything from their own lives. Given how closely many of the props and set dressings in this scene[14] resemble what you would find in an NHS hospital in early 1967, his confidence frankly seems misplaced.

The strength of this opening scene, whatever its other issues in 1967, is relevant to the story’s reputation in the second decade of this century. As the current de facto beginning of the story as a television production, it is a far more effective entry to the story than the slightly inchoate opening to episode 3. There is also a sense in which having half a serial, particularly if the episodes are successive, gives a committed audience a feeling that they are closer to understanding the whole[15]. A sustained period inside the serial’s own world.

Damon emerges as a much clearer character when you can see actor Jeavons working. His hero worship of Zaroff. His visible resentment of Ramo’s dislike for the Professor. His disconcertion when Zaroff directs criticism at him. Watching episodes 2 and 3 back to back brings out the observation that he never bothers to learn Polly’s name[16], despite – or perhaps because of – the appalling fate to which he is condemning her. That feels like something significant about the man, who emerges as a more complete character for the actor’s onscreen work.

The ability to watch two episodes straight through also provides an effective demonstration that there are too many characters in the story, particularly on the Doctor’s side. Now, this is perhaps an observation that could be made after reading the scripts, or listening to the audios of the episodes, but in the completed episodes the sheer number of characters on screen at several points, each waiting to speak, is certainly more obvious.

This justifies, creatively as well as financially, Davis’ asking Orme to slim down the number of characters/actors in the serial[17], although we might question not only some of the choices made there, but also that they did not go further. It would have been not imprudent, and probably easier from a practical rewriting perspective, to remove either Sean or Jacko once the decision to bring Jamie on board the TARDIS had been made.

The DVD release’s special features note that Ara also plays a companion-type role in this serial. Which she does. Her motivation for doing so is a good example of something simple that nevertheless cannot be quite understood about a partially missing television serial. In the missing episode 1, the Doctor saves Ara from being arbitrarily beaten by a guard while she is serving the food. As scripted this is a slightly larger matter than as realised, with additional dialogue later between the Doctor and Ben referring to it. It is nevertheless why she takes the note that may save the Doctor’s life to Zaroff later in the episode. This is simply not apparent from the audio of episode 1, and has to be discovered in the script. It is, pleasingly, an example of television as a visual medium, conveying information through pictures alone.

Ara does refer to this briefly in episode 2, saying ‘You were kind to me. And I hate Zaroff,’ when she is asked why she is doing so much to help the time travellers. It is not necessarily substantial, but it is there, and it perhaps helps prepare us for the tensions within the ruling class of Atlantis represented by Ramo, Lolem and Thous later in that episode. The novelisation makes Ara herself part of that ruling class, expanding episode 2’s scene 14 and having Ara explain at some length that her father was a reforming politician who spoke against Zaroff and his collaboration with Atlantis’ authorities and was subsequently murdered. These details are not found in the script, nor are they mentioned in the correspondence between the serial’s author and production team[18].

A bigger misapprehension about the story caused by its partially complete nature, and the kind of secondary material that exists for the serial, is the extent to which the Fish People feature in it. They feature extensively in the always extant episode 3. They are on the cover of the novelisation and the CD and DVD releases of the story[19]. They were also featured prominently in the serial’s press call, and the latter is of course the cause of the former. In addition, the Radio Times feature launching the serial used a photograph of a Fish Person from the Ealing filming, but this itself was in part a function of lead times. With Doctor Who now shot a week ahead of transmission, episode 1 would not have been made when the issue covering it was written and printed. (Which is probably why the article claims that ‘we flatly refuse to spoil your enjoyment by revealing what happens to Who’[20]. They didn’t know.)

They are not as prominent onscreen as their use in its publicity, and in the story’s afterlife implies[21]. Thanks to the recovery of episode 2, the always existing episode 3 and the 14 seconds from the end of episode 1[22], we also have essentially all the material from The Underwater Menace that features the Fish People. So, despite all this focus in the secondary material, and their presence in one of the serial’s working titles, the Fish People are only introduced in the final scene of episode 1, they also don’t feature at all (but are mentioned) in episode 4. Their prominence in episode 3 has seen them draw fan ire, but their conceptual and physical resemblance to the Cybermen is real and substantial, while their role in the story is probably more interesting than anything done with the Cybermen in 20th-century Doctor Who[23]. It is, in passing, smart writing that Polly is initially impressed by the creatures and their role in Atlantean society before being horrified that it has been decided she shall become one of them.

The variations in the appearance of the Fish People visible in the story have been noted in the past[24]. Surviving production documentation suggests a story reason for this which is never revealed onscreen. A costume and make up discussion document for the story outlines two distinct types of Fish People.

‘Fish people developed from pre-Flood . . . Full Masks

Operated fish people . . . Gills in waists. No ears or hair?’[25]

This needs some parsing, but the implication is that, had Polly’s operation been successfully carried out, she would have looked like the background Fish People less favoured in shots in episode 3; the ones with regular scuba diving masks. More, it suggests that the Fish People whose image has become synonymous with the story are not the same Fish People into which Polly will be converted, but a separate species that Zaroff’s surgically altered human Fish People emulate.

This suggestion fundamentally alters the backstory of the serial. The Fish People are not Zaroff’s invention, merely something he has semi-successfully emulated. It also means that Atlantis was living on Fish People-farmed plankton before Zaroff disappeared to it, and implies that Zaroff’s previous fame for having ‘led the field in producing food from the sea’ may in fact be based on his exploitation of pre-existing Atlantean techniques.

The Underwater Menace’s modest upturn in fan opinion is an interesting counterexample to what happened with The Enemy of the World, which had always had one episode extant at the BBC, and was likewise generally regarded as amongst the weakest Troughton era serials by fan historiography. This leapt up from 139th (2009) to 56th (2014) following the recovery of the rest of the serial in its entirety in 2013 and its subsequent DVD and digital release. Like The Underwater Menace, its original sole survivor had been the third instalment (of six in The Enemy of the World’s case), although The Underwater Menace is the only partially extant Doctor Who serial where we have the ‘middle half’, meaning that we have all the plot wheel spinning and padding and none of the initial set up or the climax[26].

From the tele-snaps, The Underwater Menace’s scene setting location filming looks dynamic and atmospheric. The destruction of Atlantis from episode 4 is well-remembered by those who saw the serial at the time[27], and again the tele-snaps suggest it was effectively mounted. Much of The Enemy of the World’s newfound popularity comes from its bullet of a first episode. It is interesting to speculate what might have happened had three episodes of The Underwater Menace and only one further of The Enemy of the World (say, the often rushed and incoherent fifth) emerged in quick succession.

When The Underwater Menace DVD was being prepared, the Australian censor clips were rescanned at the Australian Archive at a 2K resolution and resupplied to those working on the DVD. Those pieces of film still on a shelf in Australia turned out to have been removed from the same print of episode 2 returned by Terry Burnett. A member of the team restoring the episode was able to literally reinsert[28] the sequences into the episode from which they had been originally removed, half a century before and on another continent[29]. It’s like Amdo the ever-living goddess herself has decided to create the perfect physical representation for how we try to engage with partially missing material. Because whatever qualities those clips had when they were watched on Lost in Time, they only really made sense when put back in place in episode 2. Just as whatever qualities episode 3 has are made more coherent by the discovery of episode 2. And episodes 2 and 3 will only really be understood if episodes 1 and 4 turn up.

The Underwater Menace does not – or perhaps does not yet? – stand revealed as a misunderstood masterpiece, but the ability to view half rather than a quarter of it does show it to be a faster, funnier and more thoughtful serial than was hitherto suspected by almost anyone. If the first and/or fourth episodes were to bob into view, it may well be that impressive location filming in the serial’s opening minutes, or a climax that achieves the shifts in tone that some of the best moments in episodes 2 and 3 do, would see its reputation further enhanced. Perhaps not. In all probability, we will never know.

In his Black Archive on The Evil of the Daleks, Simon Guerrier writes extensively and persuasively on the known unknowns of missing Doctor Who. What the recovery of episode 2 of this serial offers us is the opportunity to see unknowns become knowns, even if it is a stalled, incomplete process. What the recovery of episode 2 has gifted us, however, in addition to a whole extra episode of 20th-century Doctor Who to enjoy, is a tremendous real-time demonstration of how any even only partially missing Doctor Who serial cannot ever really be understood as a piece of television, no matter how much secondary and supplementary material exists.

Nevertheless, The Underwater Menace remains worth exploring. It may not clearly have hidden depths, but there are plenty of diverting undercurrents for those prepared to wade in and follow them.

[1]

Presciently, he cites moments from Troughton’s performance that were more or less immediately co-opted for the story’s BBC Worldwide trailer.

Presciently, he cites moments from Troughton’s performance that were more or less immediately co-opted for the story’s BBC Worldwide trailer.

[2]

Ultimately, The Macra Terror although it was at this point unclear whether this story (at the time entitled ‘Dr Who and the Spiderman’) or ‘Dr Who and the Imps’ would be made in this slot.

Ultimately, The Macra Terror although it was at this point unclear whether this story (at the time entitled ‘Dr Who and the Spiderman’) or ‘Dr Who and the Imps’ would be made in this slot.

[3]

Wills reports that she was initially asked to stay alongside Hines, but decided to leave with Craze. This may account for her later dated contract for her final three months of Doctor Who. It seems callous to report, but it is undeniably true, that Lloyd and Davis were so keen to move on from Ben and Polly that they paid them in full for six episode recordings each that they were not required to attend, now being judged surplus to the series’ requirements.

Wills reports that she was initially asked to stay alongside Hines, but decided to leave with Craze. This may account for her later dated contract for her final three months of Doctor Who. It seems callous to report, but it is undeniably true, that Lloyd and Davis were so keen to move on from Ben and Polly that they paid them in full for six episode recordings each that they were not required to attend, now being judged surplus to the series’ requirements.

[4]

What would change if The Underwater Menace were set in the year of its production or transmission? Nothing. Its entirely isolated setting completely rules out any (debatable) need for a future setting such as that used for The Tenth Planet, in part because of the world-wide nature of the threat therein.

What would change if The Underwater Menace were set in the year of its production or transmission? Nothing. Its entirely isolated setting completely rules out any (debatable) need for a future setting such as that used for The Tenth Planet, in part because of the world-wide nature of the threat therein.

[5]

The Underwater Menace is not considered to be an influential Doctor Who story, but it is the first example of a ‘very near future’ story in the series; effectively contemporary stories that were ostensibly set in the near future would dominate Doctor Who for more than half a decade from 1969, and form a substantial chunk of its post-2005 revival.

The Underwater Menace is not considered to be an influential Doctor Who story, but it is the first example of a ‘very near future’ story in the series; effectively contemporary stories that were ostensibly set in the near future would dominate Doctor Who for more than half a decade from 1969, and form a substantial chunk of its post-2005 revival.

[6]

Arguably, You Only Live Twice (1967), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979).

Arguably, You Only Live Twice (1967), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979).

[7]

Gareth Gwenlan mentions in ‘A Fishy Tale’ that the production bought hard hats for crew to wear on location at Windspit. Are these the same ones, their use onscreen enabling them to be charged to the production?

Gareth Gwenlan mentions in ‘A Fishy Tale’ that the production bought hard hats for crew to wear on location at Windspit. Are these the same ones, their use onscreen enabling them to be charged to the production?

[8]

We will return to this in Chapter 9.

We will return to this in Chapter 9.

[9]

Nigel Robinson’s novelisation suggests the religious Atlanteans will not leave their sacred ground. Which is a good fix. It does make sense; as the lift is clearly Zaroff’s own creation, the Atlanteans were trapped for centuries without it.

Nigel Robinson’s novelisation suggests the religious Atlanteans will not leave their sacred ground. Which is a good fix. It does make sense; as the lift is clearly Zaroff’s own creation, the Atlanteans were trapped for centuries without it.

[10]

Griffiths, Peter, ‘The First 50 Years’, DWM #474.

Griffiths, Peter, ‘The First 50 Years’, DWM #474.

[11]

Tele-snaps were photographs taken off a screen during transmission of a television programme during transmission by one John Cura, the owner and operator of this unique service, providing – for a fee – a record of television programmes in an era before home video, for actors and behind-the-scenes creatives. Most ‘missing’ Doctor Who serials exist in tele-snap form.

Tele-snaps were photographs taken off a screen during transmission of a television programme during transmission by one John Cura, the owner and operator of this unique service, providing – for a fee – a record of television programmes in an era before home video, for actors and behind-the-scenes creatives. Most ‘missing’ Doctor Who serials exist in tele-snap form.

[12]

They were later published online.

They were later published online.

[13]

Plus some clips from episode 3 which were duplicated within the copy of the episode the BBC already held.

Plus some clips from episode 3 which were duplicated within the copy of the episode the BBC already held.

[14]

The huge window of the set, onto which film sequences of the Fish People are projected in episode 1 is not used this way in episode 2.

The huge window of the set, onto which film sequences of the Fish People are projected in episode 1 is not used this way in episode 2.

[15]

At the BFI screening, I swear I could hear a collective fannish click as the final scene of episode 2 arrived, and this ‘new’ episode began to link up with our collective experience of episode 3.

At the BFI screening, I swear I could hear a collective fannish click as the final scene of episode 2 arrived, and this ‘new’ episode began to link up with our collective experience of episode 3.

[16]

She is always ‘the girl’ or ‘that girl’ or ‘prisoner’.

She is always ‘the girl’ or ‘that girl’ or ‘prisoner’.

[17]

See Chapter 3.

See Chapter 3.

[18] The ‘business’ with the Doctor saving Ara from the guard is not included or mentioned, another artefact of Robinson’s source for the novelisation being an audio recording.

[19] Also, this Black Archive.

[20] Radio Times,14-20 January 1967, ‘Dr Who in a New Adventure Under the Sea’

[21] Which may very well be why the story’s title was changed.

[22]

The material projected onto the screen in episode 1 is also used in episode 3 as part of the ‘ballet’.

The material projected onto the screen in episode 1 is also used in episode 3 as part of the ‘ballet’.

[23]

This is something we’ll attempt to explore in Chapter 8.

This is something we’ll attempt to explore in Chapter 8.

[24]

E.g. Kibble-White, Graham, ‘Off the Shelf’, DWM #493.

E.g. Kibble-White, Graham, ‘Off the Shelf’, DWM #493.

[25]

Incidentally, the same document asks of the Atlanteans ‘how can we make them kinky? Recessed eyes apt to take away expression.’ This is an intention ultimately realised onscreen through the elaborate eyebrow make up applied to the male Atlanteans.

Incidentally, the same document asks of the Atlanteans ‘how can we make them kinky? Recessed eyes apt to take away expression.’ This is an intention ultimately realised onscreen through the elaborate eyebrow make up applied to the male Atlanteans.

[26]

I am indebted to Eddie Robson for this observation.

I am indebted to Eddie Robson for this observation.

[27]

Howe, Stammers and Walker, Second Doctor Handbook p59.

Howe, Stammers and Walker, Second Doctor Handbook p59.

[28]

Albeit digitally rather than physically.

Albeit digitally rather than physically.

[29] Incidentally, this means that while we do not know where the print of episode 3 found when Windmill Road was audited originated, we do know it cannot have been Australia, as it still contains the moments physically cut from the ABC’s print and discovered in the 1990s.

CHAPTER 5: ‘SCIENCE IS IN OPPOSITION TO ANCIENT TEMPLE RITUAL.’

Patrick Troughton was initially enthusiastic about the idea of a Doctor Who serial set in Atlantis, the mythology of the supposed sunken kingdom being something he was interested in. Anneke Wills described Troughton as having some ‘deep mystic’[1] interests, and it is certainly true that he took an interest in Christian theology[2], occasionally saying he would have liked to have been ‘a professional churchman’[3] albeit ‘not in the Church of England’[4], if he had not been an actor.

This enthusiasm evaporated on his seeing the scripts, perhaps because the Atlantis of The Underwater Menace might be fairly described as a stock fantasy civilisation. The historical mythology associated with Atlantis, and the various conspiracy theories related to it, are roughly as relevant to the serial as medieval history was to Ivanhoe (1957-58), an ITV-produced Roger Moore vehicle based loosely on Sir Walter Scott’s already not terribly historically inclined historical novel, and a series for which Geoffrey Orme had written nearly a decade before.

Atlantis is an allegorical construct first mentioned in Plato’s dialogue Critias (fourth century BCE). Its temples were devoted to the god Poseidon, and the kingdom was ruled by the descendants of his son with a mortal woman Cleito, Atlantis’ prosperity depending on the mythical metal orichalcum. Initially described as an earthly paradise of remarkable virtue, Atlantis becomes corrupt over centuries, and its people become a race of conquerors who are only stopped when they attempt to invade Plato’s semi-historical ideal state of ancient Athens, to which Atlantis serves as the counterpoint. Atlantis is then sunk beneath the waves by the gods for its sins against the natural order of the world.

In episode 1 Zaroff gives the location of Doctor Who’s Atlantis as ‘West of Gibraltar, south of the Azores, [on] the Atlantic ridge’, which effectively places it off the coast of North Africa, perhaps Western Sahara, depending on how far south of the Azores it is[5]. This does seem to nod to Plato’s description of Atlantis facing ‘the pillars of Hercules’ (i.e. the opening to the strait of Gibraltar), but is the only significant resemblance between Plato’s Atlantis and the one of the serial. Orme’s Atlantis is devoted to a religion seemingly created out of whole cloth for this story, one which worships a goddess named after one of the three regions of Tibet. (The script for episode 1’s film sequences describes the location as ‘presumably […] an islet in the Atlantic’.) Of Poseidon, the line of demi-god kings and mystical metal, there is no sign. If Troughton was expecting a story that reflected any reading he had done concerning Atlantis, he was right to be surprised, and perhaps disappointed.

It is arguable that this entirely fictional religion is balanced nicely by the actual science of the story also being such nonsense that it is scarcely worth engaging with. Or is that unfair, perhaps on both counts? The first episode has both the Doctor and Ben separately explain the causes and effects of Caisson Disease[6], as the characters seemingly begin to suffer it as they plummet to Atlantis in some kind of deep sea lift. It is only once we are in Atlantis proper that such wild concepts as Fish People, un-refrigerable plankton dinners and pouring the ocean into the white hot core of the planet in order to make the globe explode assail us. It’s as if the TARDIS crew and the audience have left the real world and its rules behind on entering that lift. As if the bends have induced a hallucinatory state.

But then the effects of Caisson Disease are suffered by those returning to the surface, as pressure lessens, not as it increases. So the TARDIS crew must be going up, not down in that mysterious lift. Which is a nonsense, both with regards to reality and the story itself (we can see the lift on Zaroff’s map of Atlantis in episode 2). What it might do, though, is contribute to the sense that the series has somehow gone topsy turvy. The world has literally gone upside down. (As scripted, Ben – the character most likely to know about nautical ailments – has an additional line in this scene, ‘Y’know, this makes no sense at all’, which indicates the production team were at least aware of the mistake, if not necessarily making it deliberately.)

The script has a few religious references which are missing from the story as made, that perhaps suggest this clash was on the author’s mind. The pottery from which Polly concludes they are in ‘about 1970’ is not just ‘Aztec… fake, of course’ but also specifically of Tōnatiuh, the Aztec sun god. While a cut scene from episode 2 has Sean claim Atlantis has been ‘down here ever since the Flood’ and the final word is capitalised as if to suggest the Biblical Flood, the implication being that Atlantis was destroyed as part of the story of Noah’s Ark[7].

In the final version of episode 1 the sacrifice sequence features Lolem intoning, ‘Life is a stream of water that drains away but as time does,’ a sentence which evokes both in the writing and in actor Peter Stephens’ delivery ‘Man born of woman has but a short time to live’ from the Anglican funeral service, one of the religious texts most likely to be familiar to a lay British audience in 1967. It helps ground the serial’s depiction of religious ceremony in the familiar.

The serial features other things that would be familiar to Doctor Who’s modern audience, but would have been new and striking on transmission. While Doctor Who had featured electronic music since its first second on air, and electronic scores starting with Tristram Cary’s for the first Dalek serial, The Underwater Menace is the first serial in which the incidental music is realised by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop as well as traditional instruments. However, the score itself is the work of freelancer Dudley Simpson, not a member of the Workshop itself as would be the case in later years. Brian Hodgson calls this ‘the beginning’[8] of a new relationship between the Workshop and Doctor Who.

While the decision to do this was, in part, taken for cost reasons, would it be stretching a point to see the contrast between the eerie religious chanting[9] and Hodgson’s radiophonic realisations of the same composer’s work[10] as reflecting the struggle between science and religious mysticism? A production conceit that echoes, literally echoes come to that, one of the story’s major themes?

Because, while there is no suggestion in the story that the goddess Amdo is real, or that Lolem is right to believe in her, her prediction about the arrival of the TARDIS crew does prove to be correct. But who made that prophecy out loud? Both Lolem and Ramo say they heard it made, and Ramo, at least, seems like a character whose word we can trust. We discover in episode 3 that the idol has a speaking tube enabling communication within the temple, suggesting that at least part of the religion has long been an elaborate hoax. Ramo is shocked by this. So, surely it must be Lolem? But in episode 4 he willingly dies for Amdo, which makes it at best implausible that the entire religion is a hoax perpetrated with his knowledge and connivance.

Equally, we know that the message does not come from Zaroff, because he is surprised by the arrival of the TARDIS crew. There seems to be no-one left in the story who can have made Amdo’s statement for her. Except Amdo herself.

Moreover, the TARDIS arrives on Atlantis at the vernal equinox, signifying spring and rebirth, and its arrival does portend great change for Atlantis, just as Amdo prophesied. Ramo curses Zaroff in Amdo’s name before he sends him away to be executed in episode 2, and Lolem does the same in the two men’s final conversation in episode 3. Which creates a situation where the practitioners of both the serial’s two conflicting views of Amdo have invoked her wrath on Zaroff, who subsequently dies.

This might seem to be a fitting fate for a man who is quite capable of abusing the Atlanteans’ faith in order to keep them subjugated (replying ‘Why not? It will keep the people happy’ when Thous suggests he will ‘order special prayers today’), and who is openly contemptuous of the curse when it is spat at him by Lolem.

LOLEM

May the wrath of Amdo engulf you!

ZAROFF

I’ll take my chance. Get out!

While Lolem is a murderous creature, Ramo is the Doctor’s ally against Zaroff and there is something against the grain of much Doctor Who, if not actual dramatic irony, in the Doctor allying himself with the High Priest against even a mad scientist. Zaroff insists that to ‘destroy the world’ is ‘the scientists dream of supreme power!’ which, depending on exactly how it’s punctuated, could be implying that it’s the ultimate ambition of all scientists. The script is ambiguous on the matter, offering no possessive punctuation at all. It is, in any event, an idea the Doctor does not take time to dispute and which Zaroff assumes he will understand and share. As late as episode 3 the Doctor seems genuinely saddened that Zaroff, ‘a man of science’, requires ‘the backing of thugs’ and Zaroff equally disappointed that the Doctor is not siding with him.

Elsewhere we are told that King Thous has ‘faith’ in Zaroff, and that word seems important. As does the extremely curious moment where Ben opines that ‘That, as the Doctor would say “is in the lap of the gods”,’ as if ‘in the lap of the gods’ is something the Doctor is prone to saying, or a catchphrase, when it’s something he’s never said onscreen at any point. What it does do, though, is align the Doctor with the religious and mystical forces as much as with the ostensibly scientific ones.

Interestingly, the Doctor proves to Ramo how Zaroff’s plan will destroy the world, rather than raise Atlantis, by way of a practical demonstration of the kind children were asked to do in science classes. So the man of faith is convinced by empirical processes, the Doctor in effect using the Baconian method to win him over, whereas Zaroff himself depends on argument by appeal to authority when dealing with the Atlanteans. (Although he provides a practical demonstration to the Doctor, another scientist[11].) What is particularly nice about this muddying of the waters is that earlier the Doctor cannot think of a reason Ramo should trust him and instead asks the priest for his faith, while it is surely deliberate that the more negatively portrayed High Priest of Sacrifice, Lolem, dies exactly like Professor Zaroff does; drowning because his faith in his own abilities won’t let him leave the lower level of Atlantis as it floods[12].

After the destruction of both Amdo’s temple and Zaroff’s laboratory, Damon tries to resolve these ambiguities, saying that it was unswerving devotion to Amdo that led Atlantis’ people to have faith in the Professor in the first place, which is not out of place with Zaroff’s earlier admission that he turned the Atlanteans’ ‘dreams and prophecies to my own means’. This could be seen as simple incoherence, a result of the rush drafting of the serial, but there is something interesting going on. Having set up a dichotomy between science and religion through the words of the series’ lead character, the serial then disavows this, quietly dismantling this binary idea by showing divisions within said fictional religion, and pitting the Doctor against his fellow scientist.

As we leave Atlantis we see Damon, an unsympathetic and fairly ruthless scientist but not a genocidal one, sitting with Thous, a sympathetic priest-king, and the two of them plan a new society, one ‘without gods and without fish people’, which they can build as a ‘memorial’ to the Doctor, whom they believe has died to save them[13]. Onscreen it’s at least a little bathetic, but the scene is careful to make clear that the extremes of both Zaroff’s scientific lunacy and Lolem’s religious mania are being set aside in this new society. Yet, should the New Atlantis that Thous and Damon plan to build survive, it will eventually have to contend with the fact that, from its perspective, the prophecy came true. The arrival of the Doctor and his friends, and their (self) sacrifice at the vernal equinox led to the rebirth of their civilisation.

When Ramo told the Doctor he and his friends were to play a ‘very important part’ in their rebirth festival, he was right in a way he did not imagine. Perhaps it was the will of Amdo after all?

[1]

‘A Fishy Tale’, DVD commentary episodes 2 and 3

‘A Fishy Tale’, DVD commentary episodes 2 and 3

[2]

He corresponded with Doctor Who fan and theology student Ian K McLachlan on the topic.

He corresponded with Doctor Who fan and theology student Ian K McLachlan on the topic.

[3]

E.g. in a letter to McLachlan 1972, reprinted in Howe, Stammers and Walker, The Second Doctor Handbook p21. This is striking given that two of his successors as the Doctor, Tom Baker and Sylvester McCoy, both began training for lives within the Roman Catholic Church before becoming actors.

E.g. in a letter to McLachlan 1972, reprinted in Howe, Stammers and Walker, The Second Doctor Handbook p21. This is striking given that two of his successors as the Doctor, Tom Baker and Sylvester McCoy, both began training for lives within the Roman Catholic Church before becoming actors.

[4]

His son Michael notes ‘The Church of England’ along with ‘the income tax’ as two things that made his father notably angry in the commentary on episode 1 of The Underwater Menace DVD.

His son Michael notes ‘The Church of England’ along with ‘the income tax’ as two things that made his father notably angry in the commentary on episode 1 of The Underwater Menace DVD.

[5]

If it’s much further south, the Azores become less and less useful as a marker and other islands off the west coast of Africa (e.g. Cape Verde) would be better.

If it’s much further south, the Azores become less and less useful as a marker and other islands off the west coast of Africa (e.g. Cape Verde) would be better.

[6]

Which the Doctor mispronounces as the possessive ‘Caisson’s Disease’, as if it was discovered by a person named Caisson. Which it was not. It takes its name from ‘caisson’, a chamber which is open at the bottom, and keeps water out by air pressure.

Which the Doctor mispronounces as the possessive ‘Caisson’s Disease’, as if it was discovered by a person named Caisson. Which it was not. It takes its name from ‘caisson’, a chamber which is open at the bottom, and keeps water out by air pressure.

[7]

Genesis Chapters 5 to 9. This capitalisation is repeated several times on production documentation – such as that discussing costume and makeup for the story – so is clearly not simply a typographical error.

Genesis Chapters 5 to 9. This capitalisation is repeated several times on production documentation – such as that discussing costume and makeup for the story – so is clearly not simply a typographical error.

[8]

DVD commentary, episode 3.

DVD commentary, episode 3.

[9]

Recorded by the Cliff Adams Singers on Thursday 29 December 1966, in Lime Grove Studio R.

Recorded by the Cliff Adams Singers on Thursday 29 December 1966, in Lime Grove Studio R.

[10]

Recorded at the Workshop on Monday 2 January 1967 on the Mastercolourtone organ.

Recorded at the Workshop on Monday 2 January 1967 on the Mastercolourtone organ.

[11]

Implicitly, Zaroff seems to know who the Doctor is, in keeping with The War Machines (1966), where he is presented as a scientist known to contemporary academia.

Implicitly, Zaroff seems to know who the Doctor is, in keeping with The War Machines (1966), where he is presented as a scientist known to contemporary academia.

[12] The novelisation picks up on this and expands it, having Zaroff and Lolem fight to the death as the water rises; author Nigel Robinson recalls, “Zaroff died alone. In the novelisation, High Priest Lolem and Zaroff died together in a fight to the death, religion versus science, an idea I’m rather proud of!”” This would not have been possible onscreen even had they thought of it, as actor Peter Stephens was not booked for the pre-filming or the studio recording for Episode 4. (Robinson, private correspondence, 7 Match 2020).

[13]

The Underwater Menace uses the late 1960s Doctor Who device of the TARDIS crew saving the day and then slipping away without saying goodbye.

The Underwater Menace uses the late 1960s Doctor Who device of the TARDIS crew saving the day and then slipping away without saying goodbye.

CHAPTER 6: ‘NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN STOP ME NOW!’

Pretty much every review of this story ever written, whether it’s negative or (far less frequently) positive, quotes the Professor’s final line from episode 3 and chooses to spell it phonetically, to indicate the character’s accent. ‘Nothing in ze vorld can stop me now!’ is The Discontinuity Guide’s fairly restrained stab[1]. DWM #144 goes for broke with ‘Nozzink in ze world can ztop me now!’ Yet, the most famous thing about Professor Zaroff, the thing most Doctor Who fans know about him, isn’t true.

Joseph Furst’s accent, which is not affected[2] but his own (Furst was Viennese), is not particularly prominent in his delivery of the final line of episode 3, or its (calmer) reprise at the opening of episode 4[3]. Watch, or in the latter case listen to, either of them without the accumulated detritus of decades of fan culture, and you’d have trouble labelling Furst’s tones as anything other than (admittedly exuberantly delivered) received pronunciation. Certainly it is the vowel sounds rather than the sibilants which are emphasised in his chosen reading.

While some characters in the story have their dialogue spelled oddly in the script in order to suggest pronunciation, Zaroff is rarely one of them. There are infrequent[4] attempts in the scripts to suggest dialect (‘zem’ for ‘them’), but Zaroff suffers from this far less often than Sean, Jamie and even Ben. This might sound like a small thing, but it’s a demonstration of the way fan myth accrues, like barnacles on a boat.

Perhaps more strikingly, the line as delivered is not in the script at all. On the page, Zaroff gets the far more measured ‘Come, we have much to do. Kill those two men, and follow me to the laboratory. Nothing on earth can stop me now…’[5] The change was presumably made in rehearsal, and the revised version allows the episode to end on a close-up of Zaroff, whereas the scripted version has him sweeping out of the room. The camera script also suggests a recording break immediately before the end credits to ‘blood up’ the dead guards and the injured Thous, something that the episode as actually made dispenses with as part of another change, having the King shot – rather than stabbed – and with his back to the camera, and his entourage shot off screen.

As written, Zaroff stabs Thous with a trident, whereas onscreen he shoots him down with a modern automatic weapon. It’s an effective change: the gun feels like an intrusion into the strange undersea kingdom of the story. It may also be that the serial eschewing the script’s direction to put Zaroff in ‘twentieth century clothes’ (instead putting him in a cape that seems part of the general Atlantean aesthetic) is part of the process of creating in that moment something like Future Shock. This is in keeping with an approach Smith notes in a production memo, where she cites the story as ‘the wonderful opportunity of contrasting a lost civilisation with High Priests living as they did BC against ultra-modern equipment and science’.[6] (Design documents for the story also make a point of indicating that Zaroff’s subordinate scientists’ clothes should be ‘ultra modern’.)

So, with Zaroff’s most famous moment shown to be something developed in rehearsals, and his supposed delivery of it debunked, what else is there to say about the Professor? He’s almost certainly named after the villain of Richard Connell’s ‘The Most Dangerous Game’[7], in which the protagonists arrive on an island after being shipwrecked. But other than this there seems to be little connection between the Russian-born aristocratic alpha male hunter of that story and the Zaroff of this. Nevertheless, ‘our’ Zaroff is arguably Doctor Who’s first bona fide mad scientist, if not quite its first Professor[8] and there are subtler and more interesting things in his characterisation than are usually credited.

Isn’t there something rather wonderful about Zaroff deciding to spend time with the Doctor simply because he finds him entertaining? After all, we do. Equally, his pleasure that both sides in the Cold War blamed each other for his disappearance is infectious, and the moment where Zaroff indicates his pet fish rather than the Doctor when saying ‘my friend here’ in episode 2 is, at least since 2011, rightly celebrated. This ‘business’ was not scripted, and must have come from the cast or director in rehearsals, but the script is not without nods indicating that this is how the character is to be played. To return to the cliffhanger of episode 3, the stage directions for Zaroff’s denouncing of Thous’ rule are explicit:

‘The following speech starts in anger, but as Zaroff elaborates on his theme, he begins to find the situation very amusing and it ends in great humour.’

It would be very easy, given the story’s timeframe, and the post-war vogue for thriller fiction about Nazis conducting experiments in secret, to see Zaroff as an implicitly Nazi or ex-Nazi character. Hugh David certainly saw the story that way, describing Zaroff as ‘A sort of Hitler, who’d gone down in a U-boat and arrived in an underwater city […] and started up a kind of Nazi enclave.’[9] David was recalling his brief involvement with the serial at the remove of 20 years, and may have either misremembered or remembered a mistaken assumption. But it is also possible that this was a part of the version of the story that David read, one which no longer exists. David’s interview is also the only source for the serial’s other, often-quoted ‘working title’, ‘Atlanta’, which is not mentioned anywhere in the production’s documentation. We might conjecture that the ‘Dr Who Under The Sea’ that David read is a story with a Nazi Zaroff. After all, the similar villain of Orme’s 1948 film script Nothing Venture is a fugitive Nazi. Speculating further, if ‘Atlanta’ was not the story’s title, maybe it referred to something else? In correspondence with Furst, Smith refers to the revised serial, saying Zaroff’s base ‘has become the lost continent of Atlantis’[10]. It is possible to read this to mean that earlier versions of the story, while set ‘under the sea’ as per the title, did not take place in Atlantis at all. (This might itself explain the absence of any of Plato’s Atlantis mythology in the serial’s own set up.)

Producer Innes Lloyd’s own war record made him take a dim view of drama which trivialised the conflict, as his detailed surviving notes on the ultimately abandoned Robert Kitts/Douglas Camfield script ‘Operation Werewolf’ demonstrate. If Zaroff ever were a Nazi character, this plot element could hypothetically have been one of the initial issues with the story, which led to its temporary replacement with ‘The Imps’.

However, if you are looking at the story as written and made for clues or suggestions that Zaroff was or is a Nazi, there is little to help you. At one point Zaroff refers to Damon, the Atlantean surgeon whom he has clearly expended much time and effort teaching advanced surgical techniques, as ‘Just an Atlantean. A primitive. Clever, but no vision.’ This suggests an ethnically-centred contempt for the Atlanteans, one impervious to Damon’s obvious respect for the Professor[11]. One might also choose to see the reference to ‘the East... the West’ as referring specifically to East and West Germany rather than the power blocks of the Cold War generally, but the story does not elsewhere encourage us so to do. Furst may have been cast because of the association of German-speaking actors with such parts, but it would be unforgivably crass to link the possibly Germanic Zaroff and his bizarre experiments to the crimes of the Nazi state, and the story is smart enough not to go there, to know where Doctor Who’s dramatic and ethical boundaries are.

I say ‘possibly Germanic’ because, while Furst was, as noted, Viennese, the character is referred to as ‘Polish’ in a stage direction when the script mentions that ‘he speaks with a heavy Polish accent’[12]. The Doctor managing a few words of the Polish language when Polly is trying to find out what language is spoken in Atlantis in episode 1[13] probably links to this, and perhaps indicates the Doctor has worked out – or is guessing – that Zaroff is present earlier than he acknowledges.

That Zaroff is specifically Polish, from a country that suffered under Nazi occupation, and whose government in exile was part of the Western Allies against Hitler for the whole of the Second World War, might be seen as putting as much distance between the character as realised onscreen and any earlier, fascist conception as possible. Zaroff’s nationality being deliberate rather than incidental is demonstrated by Julia Smith noting that Zaroff is conceived of as ‘a disillusioned Polish scientist’ as part of her attempts to persuade Furst to accept the part[14].

One of the interesting things about Damon is that despite being Zaroff’s protégé, he believes that those brought to Atlantis to become Fish People ‘would otherwise be corpses’. This is something that the audience knows from episode 1, in which the perfectly healthy trespassers from the TARDIS are seized, is not strictly the case. Related to this is cut dialogue from episode 2, which has Sean and Jacko discussing how many of the shipwrecks ‘around these parts’ (including their own) are ‘not all from natural causes’. Which rather makes us ask who it is that is causing them. Zaroff’s mentioned but never seen pet octopus? The Fish People, maybe?

Zaroff is very selective in what information he reveals and to whom[15] and his treatment of Damon is in keeping with this, which is essentially his modus operandi in Atlantis. This helps clear up another point in the story that has drawn criticism: that the Atlanteans have no ability to store the plankton harvested from the sea, which reliably goes putrid in a few hours. On the surface, this seems to make no sense, as plankton is refrigerable; but if Atlantis sunk beneath the waves thousands of years ago, no one on the city knows what a refrigerator is. It is not a plot issue that he simply hasn’t told them what one is, when not doing so is to his advantage.

There is no problem in seeing the Atlanteans’ dependence on Zaroff for food as deliberate on his part. We know he gives the Atlanteans what knowledge he finds it useful for them to have, and leaves what gaps he chooses. Making them dependent daily on him for the necessities of life is an important part of his plan, as important as his flattering of Thous and his making a younger generation of ambitious Atlanteans, such as Damon, dependent on him. Because as well as a jack-of-all-trades scientists, Zaroff is simply a brilliant conman, and Atlantis is the greatest grift of all time.

To bring this extraordinary character to life, director Julia Smith turned to actor Joseph Furst, who had worked extensively with Doctor Who’s creator, Sydney Newman, while they were both in Canada[16] and possibly this, or his prior relationship with Patrick Troughton (they had worked together before in The Midnight Men (1964)), were factors in his casting[17]. Doctor Who fandom has often been negative about Furst’s performance, sometimes noting his subsequent stints in Australian soap operas like The Young Doctors (1976-83) and A Country Practice (1981-93), and his Zaroff-lite turn in Diamonds Are Forever (1971). But Furst’s career was long and embraced many parts. His heartbreaking performance in the title role of Dr Korczak and the Children (1962)[18], his conflicted Generaloberst Fromm[19] in The July Plot (1964) and his plausible gun runner Schneider in the Callan ‘pilot’ A Magnum for Schneider (1967)[20] all point to an actor of versatility and subtlety. If Zaroff is a comic monster, then he is so entirely deliberately.

Furst’s one long video interview touching on Doctor Who, appended to a fan reconstruction of the first, second and fourth episodes of the serial shows a thoughtful and self-deprecating man, who comments on the pleasure he had in playing villains but also saying ‘I always tried to find a human element to it’. Onscreen, that human element comes from the Professor’s humour, but the BBC Drama Early Warning Synopsis for the serial suggests a path not taken. It gives Zaroff’s motivation for destroying the world as being the loss of his family in a car crash shortly before his disappearance. In essence, his world has already ended, so he is going to destroy everyone else’s[21]. This is a terrifyingly nihilistic motivation for a character, even a villain, in a children’s adventure serial. Its absence is to the serial’s benefit. Hints at a replacement motivation, never expressed onscreen, can be found in Smith’s correspondence, where she notes that Zaroff is ‘disillusioned [and has] decided that the only thing to be done with the world is to blow it up!’[22]

For Anneke Wills, Furst’s performance was simply ‘completely over the top’[23] and he didn’t seem to understand the silliness of his performance when the regular cast drew attention to it[24]. In contrast, Catherine Howe (Ara), unaware of Wills’ comments, felt Furst was playing the part entirely straight and that his madness was quite disturbing[25]. It is interesting to see two such wildly different reactions to the performance as it presents in the finished serial, from two people who also saw the performance rehearsed and then given in studio across a whole month, although admittedly four decades earlier.

Whatever Furst brings to Zaroff, the character remains something of a mystery – lacking a coherent motivation, and blessed with a baffling array of scientific specialities and skills. But there is something more there than simply an all-purpose madman. Enough to be explored in a sequel. Because, while the serial assumes that Zaroff dies in the destruction of Atlantis, it is entirely reasonable to ask how likely it is that Professor Zaroff, a man living in a sunken city, who has faked his own death before, and who is the inventor of plastic gills that allow humans to breathe underwater, would suffer death by drowning.

[1]

Cornell, Day and Topping, The Discontinuity Guide, p69.

Cornell, Day and Topping, The Discontinuity Guide, p69.

[2]

This is an assumption made by, e.g., Howe, Stammers and Walker, The Second Doctor Handbook p59.

This is an assumption made by, e.g., Howe, Stammers and Walker, The Second Doctor Handbook p59.

[3]

All three cliffhanger reprises in this story are reenacted, rather than played in from a tele-recording. This may be a deliberate choice, given the structure of the scripts, or an artefact of the speed at which the story was being made. It was perhaps more difficult to reliably create a tele-recording of a section of an episode recorded only a week before, the master tape of which would be needed for transmission purposes during the final camera rehearsals for the episode reprising its end.

All three cliffhanger reprises in this story are reenacted, rather than played in from a tele-recording. This may be a deliberate choice, given the structure of the scripts, or an artefact of the speed at which the story was being made. It was perhaps more difficult to reliably create a tele-recording of a section of an episode recorded only a week before, the master tape of which would be needed for transmission purposes during the final camera rehearsals for the episode reprising its end.

[4]

Low single figures occasions in total across all four scripts.

Low single figures occasions in total across all four scripts.

[5]

One might also glance appreciatively at the idea that Zaroff is defeated by the Doctor, who is not ‘in the world’ in the sense that he is not of it, being from another.

One might also glance appreciatively at the idea that Zaroff is defeated by the Doctor, who is not ‘in the world’ in the sense that he is not of it, being from another.

[6]

Smith, 29 November 1966

Smith, 29 November 1966

[7]

A 1924 short story, adapted to film several times. On publication it won the prestigious O Henry Award.

A 1924 short story, adapted to film several times. On publication it won the prestigious O Henry Award.

[8]

Doctor Who is littered with scientists who use this (often honorific) title, although on only one occasion do we find one occupying a chair at a university; presumably the more usual academic qualification ‘doctor’ conflicts with the title character’s name sufficiently to make dialogue confusingly difficult to write.

Doctor Who is littered with scientists who use this (often honorific) title, although on only one occasion do we find one occupying a chair at a university; presumably the more usual academic qualification ‘doctor’ conflicts with the title character’s name sufficiently to make dialogue confusingly difficult to write.

[9]

‘Hugh David’.

‘Hugh David’.

[10]

Smith to Furst, 29 November 1966.

Smith to Furst, 29 November 1966.

[11]

Damon defends Zaroff in a conversation with Ramo when they are alone together, and is clearly mystified by the priest’s hatred for Zaroff.

Damon defends Zaroff in a conversation with Ramo when they are alone together, and is clearly mystified by the priest’s hatred for Zaroff.

[12]

Which is then, as noted, rarely true of the actual dialogue itself.

Which is then, as noted, rarely true of the actual dialogue itself.

[13] This scene is of incidental interest in other ways. It is Doctor Who’s first attempt to engage with the problem that not everyone the TARDIS crew encounters should speak English. This is the first time that Ben and Polly might reasonably ask this question. Every other place they have been (18th-century Cornwall and Scotland, a 1986 military base commanded by an American, a near-future human colony) has been somewhere English would – at the very least could – be spoken. The End of the World (2005) would eventually retcon dramatic necessity as a function of the TARDIS, based on a long-time fan reading of dialogue in The Masque of Mandragora (1976). That retrospectively makes the Doctor’s engagement in the question here odd, unless the Polish is to draw Zaroff’s attention. It might also be argued that the Doctor’s recent regeneration has scrambled the TARDIS’ translation circuits, as seen in The Christmas Invasion (2005).

[14]

Smith to Furst, 29 November 1966.

Smith to Furst, 29 November 1966.

[15]

The most grandiose example of this being the scientists working alongside him in episode 4, who are willing to stay and die with him if they achieve the raising of Atlantis in the process, but not if the objective is to destroy the world.

The most grandiose example of this being the scientists working alongside him in episode 4, who are willing to stay and die with him if they achieve the raising of Atlantis in the process, but not if the objective is to destroy the world.

[16]

Including Furst playing Iago under Newman’s direction and opposite Lorne Greene’s Othello, for live television.

Including Furst playing Iago under Newman’s direction and opposite Lorne Greene’s Othello, for live television.

[17]

Innes Lloyd had previously cast Robert Beatty in The Tenth Planet in part exactly because Beatty and Hartnell had worked together previously and enjoyed each other’s company, so this idea is not far-fetched, especially as Troughton was due to agree whether or not to extend his Doctor Who contract during the recording of this serial.

Innes Lloyd had previously cast Robert Beatty in The Tenth Planet in part exactly because Beatty and Hartnell had worked together previously and enjoyed each other’s company, so this idea is not far-fetched, especially as Troughton was due to agree whether or not to extend his Doctor Who contract during the recording of this serial.

[18]

Janusz Korczak was a Polish Jewish children’s author and educator, who was murdered by the Nazi regime during its occupation.

Janusz Korczak was a Polish Jewish children’s author and educator, who was murdered by the Nazi regime during its occupation.

[19]

Friederich Fromm (1888-1945) was a Nazi executed for a failure to prevent the ‘July Plot’ to assassinate Hitler.

Friederich Fromm (1888-1945) was a Nazi executed for a failure to prevent the ‘July Plot’ to assassinate Hitler.

[20]

This episode of Armchair Theatre is retrospectively considered the ‘pilot’ for Callan and was recorded shortly before The Underwater Menace in September 1966.

This episode of Armchair Theatre is retrospectively considered the ‘pilot’ for Callan and was recorded shortly before The Underwater Menace in September 1966.

[21]

We might intuit that this was removed during the rewriting covered by the flurry of memos from Davis to Orme dated 16 to 29 November.

We might intuit that this was removed during the rewriting covered by the flurry of memos from Davis to Orme dated 16 to 29 November.

[22]

Smith to Furst, 29 November 1966.

Smith to Furst, 29 November 1966.

[23]

CD release, Track 47.

CD release, Track 47.

[24]

CD release, Track 49 .

CD release, Track 49 .

[25]

‘A Fishy Tale’.

‘A Fishy Tale’.

CHAPTER 7: ‘I SHOULD LIKE A HAT LIKE THAT!’

William Hartnell made both his entrance and his exit as the Doctor wearing a fur hat, one usually referred to by fans as an astrakhan, although it’s probably a karakul. Other hats sported by the original Doctor include a cowboy hat when visiting America (in The Gunfighters) and a phenomenal piece of headgear when posing a French revolutionary official in The Reign of Terror (1964)[1]. It was perhaps out of a desire to live up to his predecessor’s high standards that the Troughton Doctor began his reign wearing a very tall fur hat most of the time. The intention, initially at least, was that Troughton’s Doctor’s clothes would be a shabby, Chaplin-esque parody of his predecessor’s normal attire. Troughton’s hat fits this pattern, also being made of fur and building to a peak. This one is generally referred to by fans as a ‘stovepipe’, but this is again wrong. A stovepipe has a flat top, and the Doctor’s hat doesn’t. (It’s probably a Paris Beau.)

This, though, is not the only hat Troughton’s Doctor sports early in his era. A key part of the Doctor’s characterisation in these very early episodes was that he had a passion for trying on other people’s, an action often accompanied by (a variation on) the phrase ‘I would like a hat like that!’ In his second story, The Highlanders, the Doctor tries on a feathered Jacobite cockade he finds on the battlefield at Culloden, offending the wounded Jacobites whose now-lost cause it represents. Later in the same story he wears both a British Army tricorn hat and an old lady’s bonnet and shawl, and tries on a tam-o’shanter.

In the soundtrack of the missing episode 1 of The Underwater Menace, as the Doctor scoffs the plankton offered him for dinner in Atlantis, Polly expresses surprise: ‘I’ve never seen him go for food like this before. It’s usually hats!’ Perhaps he took her words to heart, for between this scene and the beginning of the extant episode 2, his usual hat disappears, and bar a brief reappearance on location in episode 4, he never wears it again. The catchphrase and enthusiasm for pinching other people’s hats also make their final appearance in this story. Other aspects of the Doctor’s costume, such as the size and pattern of his trousers[2], and wearing an outlandish belt, had already rethought after The Highlanders and The Power of the Daleks respectively.

Publicity pictures taken during January 1967 might be seen to reflect the idea of the actor tiring of the hat along with other aspects of his initial characterisation[3]; some show him wearing the hat and pulling a disgruntled and horrified expression, while others show him beaming beatifically once the not-stovepipe has been removed. There might be another, more mundane practical reason, though. Troughton’s first 11 episodes as the Doctor – all of The Power of the Daleks and The Highlanders and the opening episode of The Underwater Menace – are missing. So is the 14th, The Underwater Menace episode 4, in which the hat makes its positively final appearance. What we do have though is a large number of tele-snaps from the missing episodes of Troughton’s first three serials. The 55th tele-snap from the last episode of The Highlanders seems to show the Doctor’s hat in a state of serious disrepair, with the crown having been knocked down. The same damage is visible in tele-snaps for The Underwater Menace episode 1 (the first and 11th particularly) and 4 (the fourth from last gives us a good look).

Had the item itself been damaged to a point where it couldn’t be regularly used over just 10 weeks of studio recordings? And if so, when did this occur? Let’s look at the (photographic) evidence. Location and Ealing pre-filming for all four episodes of The Highlanders was conducted from 11 to 16 November 1966[4]. Tele-snaps for those scenes show the hat undamaged (we get a good look at it in the 17th tele-snap from episode 1). We don’t get a good, clear view at the hat in any of the tele-snaps of videotaped studio scenes for episodes 1, 2 and 3 of The Highlanders, recorded on 3, 10 and 17 December 1966 respectively. But it is clearly there in those for episode 4 (recorded 24 December 1966). It also seems to be visible in the final location tele-snaps for The Highlanders episode 4. A revised final scene of the episode was shot on 21 November 1966, showing Jamie boarding the TARDIS along with the Doctor, Ben and Polly, following the decision to retain Frazer Hines as a series regular.

What this suggests is that the hat was damaged at some point between the initial filming for The Highlanders (11 to 16 November) and the remount (21 November), being retained across the studio recordings for The Highlanders either for continuity purposes, or because it was unclear whether the damage was sufficient to prevent it continuing to be used. (The Doctor’s outfit is, after all, already deliberately shabby.) Pre-filming for the first and last episodes of The Underwater Menace[5] was conducted on 11 and 12 December 1966 in Dorset, and on location on the 12th Troughton wore the hat, so obviously it was still intended to be kept at this point.

The Doctor’s hat is featured in close-up at the beginning of The Underwater Menace episode 1, recorded on 7 January 1967. The episode title caption is run over it – almost as if the thing is being given a big exit because at some point during that episode it’s going to disappear. We can’t be sure exactly when and where to, because none of the surviving tele-snaps show the exact moment. The Doctor is still wearing it when Ramo welcomes him to Atlantis, but it has gone by the time he meets Professor Zaroff. It then doesn’t appear in the second or third episodes, the ones that we can actually watch. We might assume that it is lost during the lengthy scene where Lolem attempts to sacrifice the TARDIS crew, but for one detail.

For episode 4, it’s back to tele-snaps and what happens? As the Doctor emerges from the ruins of Atlantis onto the beach at the story’s end, his hat is just about visible on his head.

Where has it come from? He can’t have had it in his pockets all this time, it wouldn’t fit. In practical terms this is both easily explained and revealing. These scenes were shot the same day as the episode 1 scene of the Doctor entering Atlantis, which implies that the decision to write out the hat during the studio recording of episode 1 had not been made by the date of the location shoot, otherwise continuity would mean Troughton removing his hat for the scenes for episode 4.

It must be after this point that the decision to abandon the damaged costume item was taken, during rehearsals for either one of the last two episodes of The Highlanders, or the first of The Underwater Menace, with it being disposed of as soon as the practical logistics of Doctor Who’s schedule would allow. Or rather slightly before that, given the hat’s sudden, inexplicable reappearance at the very end of this story. For shot continuity’s sake, the Doctor’s hat does appear in the story’s final TARDIS scene, but it’s Polly, not the Doctor who is wearing it. Has he popped it on her head as a joke? Has she taken it from him? Does she get it in the location scene, but after the only photographs we have[6], or in the TARDIS studio scene before our photographic evidence? (Here, the surviving camera script is of no help.) Had Troughton become so sick of his vast and eccentric headgear he was unwilling to wear it even for a single shot?

We are unlikely ever to know for certain, unless the episodes are mysteriously returned to the BBC. Given the sudden, unanticipated appearance of episode 2, that doesn’t seem impossible – and one of the joys of that episode is that it allowed us to see the glorious last hurrah for the Doctor’s enthusiasm for other people’s hats, as he tries on an Atlantean Priest’s headgear and asked how he looks, only for the question to be ignored.

The return of episode 1 would also allow us to answer another, equally pressing matter of Troughton’s costuming. Given that The Underwater Menace follows on directly from The Highlanders, with the Doctor and all three of his companions wearing their specific costumes from the final episode of the earlier story in the opening episode of the second, how and when does the Doctor change his trousers?

It’s enough to keep you awake at night.

[1]

If you are not familiar with this, just google. It’s worth it.

If you are not familiar with this, just google. It’s worth it.

[2]

Curiously, the costume prepared for Troughton for The Five Doctors (1983) and largely reused in The Two Doctors (1985) reverts to a check pattern more like that from this first two serials. Presumably costume designer Colin Lavers was given photographs from one of the two for reference.

Curiously, the costume prepared for Troughton for The Five Doctors (1983) and largely reused in The Two Doctors (1985) reverts to a check pattern more like that from this first two serials. Presumably costume designer Colin Lavers was given photographs from one of the two for reference.

[3]

A passion for disguise is evident in his first three serials, and his first three serials only.

A passion for disguise is evident in his first three serials, and his first three serials only.

[4]

Doctor Who’s exceptionally tight schedule in 1966 meant that the regular cast would need to miss rehearsals for that week’s studio episode in order to attend such pre-filming. Troughton and Wills were granted leave from rehearsals for The Power of the Daleks episode 5. While Michael Craze attended pre-filming for The Highlanders he was not needed for rehearsals, with Ben not being present in the episode being rehearsed.

Doctor Who’s exceptionally tight schedule in 1966 meant that the regular cast would need to miss rehearsals for that week’s studio episode in order to attend such pre-filming. Troughton and Wills were granted leave from rehearsals for The Power of the Daleks episode 5. While Michael Craze attended pre-filming for The Highlanders he was not needed for rehearsals, with Ben not being present in the episode being rehearsed.

[5]

Episodes 2 and 3 feature no location material.

Episodes 2 and 3 feature no location material.

[6]

Although this would suggest an element of pre-planning against the run of the evidence.

Although this would suggest an element of pre-planning against the run of the evidence.

CHAPTER 8: ‘LOOK AT HIM! HE’S NOT NORMAL, IS HE?’

The default view of Doctor Who fan history is that Patrick Troughton immediately conquered the part of the Doctor upon being given it. I would like to offer, in the spirit of his Doctor in the Temple of Amdo, a heretical alternative to that. Because, while there is no question that his performance is immediately superb, it is also, in his earliest episodes, odder and more experimental than it later became; this is again something that the availability of only one of Troughton’s first 14 episodes[1] as the Doctor before 2011 obscures.

Anneke Wills has commented that it was during The Moonbase that Troughton’s Doctor settled down[2], while Frazer Hines disagreed in the detail, noting that there is nothing in episode 3 of The Underwater Menace that would be out of place in any of the hundred or so later episodes in which they appeared together[3]. Later in life Troughton spoke in interviews of an initial desire to play the part under heavy makeup, to ‘wear a big turban and brass earrings with a big grey beard’[4], or so outrageously he would be unrecognisable, as ‘a Windjammer[5] Captain with a sort of Victorian naval hat and brass buttons’[6], so as to prevent typecasting. The Doctor of his first three stories seems to reflect, if not directly, that ambition, with his constant disguises and costume changes. There seems a conscious desire not to leave a memorable single image of his characterisation, a decision that reeks of that attempt to avoid typecasting.

Troughton also discussed how his performance was reined in at the same time as his costume was simplified; ‘We were exaggerating a bit, and afterwards we toned it down as we got more confident in what we were doing[7], also noting, ‘To begin with, you see, I found myself playing it over the top, but the Head of Serials, Shaun Sutton, said “No, no, just do it in your head, old chap, don’t do all those stunts,” and so on. So I toned it down a bit after that, and it was warmer.’ In multiple interviews Troughton recalled one ‘early script’ where the Doctor was written as an ‘autocratic Sherlock Holmes who never stopped talking’[8]. This is usually assumed to be either his literal first episode, The Power of the Daleks episode 1, or The Evil of the Daleks episode 1 (which features the Doctor following a series of baffling pseudo-Conan Doyle clues to Waterfield’s antique shop). But it seems a more reasonable characterisation of the early part of The Underwater Menace, which the Doctor spends observing and deducing where they are in a manner that is more Holmesian on the page, and which Troughton’s delivery repeatedly softens. There is also considerably more of this on the page than in the finished episode.

This approach in the writing, though, is entirely in keeping with the ‘Character Notes for The New Doctor Who’ written by Davis in Summer 1966[9], which in part read: ‘A feature of the new Doctor Who will be the humour on the lines of the sardonic humour of Sherlock Holmes. He enjoys disconcerting his companions with unconventional and unexpected repartee.’

At the end of episode 1, the Doctor bursts into manic laughter when Zaroff himself does, and starts paraphrasing the Professor’s own statements back at him. This is something that might, in context, be a shared mania with the mad scientist, or simply him finding it politic to join in. Tele-snap coverage of the scene isn’t great, and the audio can only get us so far. In any later story, it would obviously be the latter. But this is the man who a week before was needlessly affecting a German accent and banging someone’s head into a table as a distraction. If we don’t read the Doctor’s chat with Zaroff backwards through 50 hours of Troughton’s later performances, it’s far more ambiguous. And far more of a part with the more sinister performance Troughton gives in sections of The Power of the Daleks[10]. The Doctor’s repetitions and own laughter are not scripted. They are Troughton’s own contributions as a performer.

Terrance Dicks, when writing Robot (1974-75), the first serial to feature the fourth Doctor, made a point of emphasising in the script that the Doctor’s initial behaviour might not reflect his settled personality, but instead is related to the trauma of the metamorphosis. This was deliberately done so that actor Tom Baker could discard anything from his earliest performances which he came to view as a mistake, with an in-fiction explanation already given[11]. While applying it to the first 14 episodes of the Troughton era is unquestionably an example of retroactive continuity, it is also legitimate in view of Doctor Who’s arguable nature as one vast, single unfolding text, particularly given that the circumstances are exactly the same, and Troughton’s on-the-record comments about his deliberate revising of his performance at this point.

The Doctor’s decision to defeat Zaroff by flooding the lower levels of Atlantis in order to make it impossible for him to carry out his plan has been criticised[12]. This utilitarian-seeming decision – to destroy a city to save a planet – might be seen to echo the ending of The Power of the Daleks, where the Doctor destroys the colony’s power supply, causing multiple deaths, in order to defeat the Daleks. It is also worth noting that it rewards the Fish People, who have been instrumental in the defeat of Zaroff, by freeing them from their enforced labour in Atlantis and giving them access to the wider seas. So while it is perhaps more altruistic than it first seems, there is something else important about it.

The Doctor comes to regret this decision onscreen, and in the laboratory at the end struggles to save Zaroff[13], realising that he cannot justify letting him drown even to save the world. So strongly does he feel about this that he has to be physically restrained by Ben in order to stop him trying a third time. This complete reversal of his view feels like it is – or maybe simply should be – the moment this Doctor decides who he really is. The most excessive of his costume elements, the penchant for the disguises, the fascination with hats, even the tendency towards elliptical speech, all present and correct as recently as episode 1, and in varying combinations in episodes 2 and 3, are all gone by episode 4, at least as far as we can tell. Certainly none are present in The Moonbase episode 2 a fortnight later. His character and performance have been tidied up.

We have already looked at the evolution of this Doctor’s costume in Chapter 7, but there is a little more to say on it here in this context; the sweeping cape which the Doctor wears on location in the opening episode of this story, and in much of The Highlanders, is seemingly lost in Atlantis. But either it or one very like it will appear once more in a story set in a cold environment, The Tomb of the Cybermen, which was filmed as the last serial of the fourth production block. The very next story recorded after that, The Abominable Snowmen (1967), will see the character adopt a shabby fur coat for cold outdoor sequences. There are plot reasons for this[14], and for its appearance in a third story, The Ice Warriors (1967), shot next. Interestingly, it is the coat, rather than the cape, that makes a re-appearance in The Five Doctors (1983) and which is used to signify Troughton’s Doctor in Time and the Rani (1987)[15]. They appear as often as each other before that, and their appearances are (or were) equally missing from the archives. But the coat represents the Troughton Doctor’s ‘settled self’[16].

This is another area where referring to the story’s 1980s novelisation is useful. The book imposes a slighter later idea of Troughton’s Doctor’s characterisation on The Underwater Menace. Of the hat and cape there is no mention, while the Doctor’s primary interest on the islet’s beach is not scientific investigation, but building sandcastles. Whether done deliberately, or instinctively due to a greater familiarity with the later Troughton Doctor[17], these differences are nevertheless instructive, and a valuable contrast.

Patrick Troughton’s second contract for playing ‘Doctor Who’ is dated 27 January 1967, the Friday before the Saturday when episode 4 of this story was recorded and episode 3 transmitted. Had he not signed it, or not been offered it, he could have departed the series at the end of The Macra Terror. However, his new contract would take him well into the series’ fifth production block, guaranteeing he would be on television as the Doctor for well over a year, rather than merely 22 weeks. Revised character notes issued for ‘The New Doctor Who’ and Jamie are dated 28 January, despite that being a Saturday.

That this should happen at the exact same point as his characterisation settles down is not coincidence. It is not that Troughton’s revised performance prompted the series’ extension – there seems to be no serious possibility of Doctor Who ending at this exact point – it’s that Troughton’s agreeing to continue playing the Doctor for months means the performance has to become smaller. The wildness of those first three months can’t be sustained for another nine, in terms of performance energy if nothing else. Even if it could, there is little point, if the extreme eccentricity of Troughton’s episodes is meant to discourage viewers from forming an idea of his Doctor, resisting typecasting. If Troughton is going to be the Doctor for a year, then recognition for it, if not typecasting, is inevitable. This is the point that the Troughton era became ‘The Troughton Era’; its own thing, not an experimental extension of a William Hartnell-led series that had perhaps run its course[18].

If episode 3 of The Highlanders, which a gun-wielding Doctor spends entirely in drag, were the only episode from Troughton’s first three months as the Doctor to survive, we would have a radically different set of assumptions and a very different view of the early Troughton Doctor, of Doctor Who in early 1967 and of the series’ first changeover of leading actors. This again emphasises the extent to which the essentially random nature of Doctor Who’s archive survival has influenced fan responses.

The Underwater Menace is not disposable, and we only assume that it is because it was disposed of.

[1]

This is the equivalent of an entire post-1985 20th-century series of Doctor Who.

This is the equivalent of an entire post-1985 20th-century series of Doctor Who.

[2]

Lunar Landing.

Lunar Landing.

[3]

DVD commentary, episode 3.

DVD commentary, episode 3.

[4]

Pebble Mill at One, 21 December 1973.

Pebble Mill at One, 21 December 1973.

[5]

‘Windjammer’ was an informal, derogatory term for a multi-sailed commercial vessel used by sailors. Troughton was in the Navy during the Second World War.

‘Windjammer’ was an informal, derogatory term for a multi-sailed commercial vessel used by sailors. Troughton was in the Navy during the Second World War.

[6]

Landen, Richard, ‘Patrick Troughton’, DWM #78, 1983.

Landen, Richard, ‘Patrick Troughton’, DWM #78, 1983.

[7]

Marson, Richard, ‘Patrick Troughton’ DWM #102, 1984.

Marson, Richard, ‘Patrick Troughton’ DWM #102, 1984.

[8]

Interviewed on stage at the Panopticon VI convention, 1985.

Interviewed on stage at the Panopticon VI convention, 1985.

[9]

Although they are in part based on the 16 May 1963 guidelines written by David Whitaker more than three years before.

Although they are in part based on the 16 May 1963 guidelines written by David Whitaker more than three years before.

[10]

In so far as we can tell from the audio alone. Much of the argument of this book being that we can’t, really.

In so far as we can tell from the audio alone. Much of the argument of this book being that we can’t, really.

[11] The idea was developed further, perhaps taken to extremes, in stories such as Colin Baker’s debut, The Twin Dilemma (1984).

[12]

Wood and Miles, About Time Volume 2, p65.

Wood and Miles, About Time Volume 2, p65.

[13]

‘Ben, I’ve been thinking. I can’t leave Zaroff to drown down there. I’m going back for him.’

‘Ben, I’ve been thinking. I can’t leave Zaroff to drown down there. I’m going back for him.’

[14]

The Doctor is mistaken for one of the titular beasties.

The Doctor is mistaken for one of the titular beasties.

[15]

It is not the same costume item in the 1980s stories.

It is not the same costume item in the 1980s stories.

[16]

To emphasise the point, the cape prompted some fan surprise on discovery of The Tomb of the Cybermen in 1992, e.g. ‘Off The Shelf’, DWM #187.

To emphasise the point, the cape prompted some fan surprise on discovery of The Tomb of the Cybermen in 1992, e.g. ‘Off The Shelf’, DWM #187.

[17] In 1986 the only completely extant Troughton serial were from late 1968 and 1969, and only The Krotons (1968-69, repeated in 1981) and The Seeds of Death (1969, released on commercial VHS in 1985) were readily accessible.

[18]

By way of comparison, Taggart (1983-2010) transcended the death of its lead actor in 1994 and ran for longer without him that it had with him, whereas the replacement of star Ardal O’Hanlon with James Dreyfuss for a sixth series of sitcom My Hero (2000-06) led not just to declining ratings and the series’ cancellation, but the final two episodes of that season being moved from Friday primetime to Sunday early afternoons. This comparison is exact, in that Dreyfuss literally played O’Hanlon’s alien character in a new body.

By way of comparison, Taggart (1983-2010) transcended the death of its lead actor in 1994 and ran for longer without him that it had with him, whereas the replacement of star Ardal O’Hanlon with James Dreyfuss for a sixth series of sitcom My Hero (2000-06) led not just to declining ratings and the series’ cancellation, but the final two episodes of that season being moved from Friday primetime to Sunday early afternoons. This comparison is exact, in that Dreyfuss literally played O’Hanlon’s alien character in a new body.

CHAPTER 9: ‘A NEW ATLANTIS.’

The word ‘Edwardian’ is often invoked in writing about Doctor Who, but Geoffrey Orme was the real thing. Born 10 June 1904 in Essex, he’s Doctor Who’s earliest-born writer, and one of the earliest-born people to work on Doctor Who in any capacity. If his sole Doctor Who contribution is, as we discussed in chapter 1, one of the least canonical Doctor Who serials, then Orme stands as perhaps the series’ most obscure author. While he had a four-decade career as a screenwriter, beginning in the 1930s, almost all of it was in low-budget cinema of the kind not, at least until recently, reliably available since its original, somewhat patchy release. He started writing for television at the end of the 1950s, during a period where, in the words of producer Barbara K Emary:[1]

‘...it became more and more difficult to get finance for the smaller sort of picture, everything had to be a leading star coming over from America, because they had to get sales in America in order to make a film worthwhile, to make any money at all, you could hardly make money in our country alone.’[2]

Biographical details for Orme outside his long (and almost certainly incomplete) list of screenwriting credits are obscure. He married Evelyn C Deans in 1932, and given his unusual combination of forenames he was almost certainly the RAF Flying Officer Geoffrey Perceval Orme placed on Administrative and Special Duties in summer 1944 (i.e. just after his 40th birthday), and thus the Pilot Cadet of the same name called up in 1941 (service number 1658086). This would fit with the sudden petering out of his prolific screenwriting after 1941, and its resumption in earnest in 1946. He died in Lewes, Sussex, in 1978, Evelyn having predeceased him in 1970.

He does not seem ever to have been interviewed about his work as a screenwriter, and references to him by collaborators are at best rare. Despite all the occasions on which they worked together, Orme is not mentioned once in the three hours of interview material with Emary about her career which are held by the BFI, even though she talks about several films that they co-wrote, and in some detail. He is even more of a mystery than his single Doctor Who serial.

Is any of this important in terms of that serial? Surely, the author is figuratively (and in this case literally) dead? Well, The Web Planet (1965) certainly gains texture, if nothing else, from the knowledge that writer Bill Strutton was an ANZAC captured by the Nazis at the fall of Crete, and that much of his other writing work consists of Second World War commando fiction, because it prompts the realisation that, once you strip away the giant insect costumes, that’s exactly what that story of an advance party arriving in occupied territory ahead of a counter-invasion is. It certainly can’t hurt to attempt to look at Orme’s sole Doctor Who story in light of what we know of him.

Nothing about The Underwater Menace suggests the Edwardian, whether you use that as a noun or an adjective. Instead it features Doctor Who’s first mention of the Cold War, its first bona fide mad scientist villain and a strange ragbag of allusions that stretch from antiquity[3] to the then near future. The first scene famously paraphrases Scots poet Robert Burns (‘Nae man can tether time nor tide’). This scene is often said to be the work of script editor Gerry Davis, but one of Orme’s letters to Davis concerning the serial[4] says he has included a version of the TARDIS opening scene the serial requires, but is happy for Davis to rewrite it if he sees fit. (Frustratingly we don’t have two texts to compare, so do not know if he did or not[5].) The Doctor and Zaroff’s conversation about Zaroff’s disappearance ‘20 years previously’ seems to nod to Mark Twain with the Doctor suggesting to Zaroff that ‘Reports of your death’ were ‘somewhat exaggerated’[6]. Elsewhere Jamie (presumably unknowingly), Ben and Sean quote ‘The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond’, a song written in 1841 but (fallaciously) linked with the mythology of the Jacobite uprising in which Jamie fought. Back in the TARDIS in the story’s final scene, the Doctor speaks of ‘the wild blue yonder’ and acknowledges as he does so that it’s a quotation, while admitting that he can’t place it. It’s from the 1939 Robert Crawford song ‘Army Air Corps’ which was popular, as was the phrase it generated, amongst RAF fliers. Here, in the story’s final scene, it finally feels like we have a thing that links the story to its author[7]. But there must be others, surely.

It has occasionally been noted, usually with some mirth, that the centrepiece of the always surviving third episode of The Underwater Menace is an example of industrial action. In order to bring Zaroff’s control over Atlantis to its end, the Fish People[8] cease to labour to provide Atlantis’ food supply, leading to unrest even amongst the Professor’s most loyal followers. About Time argues that strikes in British film and television are usually ‘doomed but noble or cynical and successful’[9] and that this is an exception for being both effective and just. Is this exceptionalism itself important?[10]

It might be argued that the fact that the strike is started by an Irishman and a South Asian[11] innately lends an anti-colonial air to this withdrawal of labour, and maybe it does. Sean is written as Irish. Not only does he have an Irish name, but there are several (not exactly subtle) references to his nationality in dialogue[12], which is itself spelled in such a way as to indicate dialect. This is also true of Jamie and Ben, whose Scots and cockney accents are represented by spellings such as ‘Dinne’ and ‘stummick’ respectively. Jacko, though, is very neutrally written, and Anil’s casting would be a good example of early colour-blind casting in television[13], were he not written quite so neutrally he doesn’t seem to have a personality, beyond a certain belligerence[14]. (‘Take no notice. He’s a bit like that you see,’ says Sean, apologising to Ben after one of Jacko’s outbursts in episode 2.)

Are strikes or other forms of direct political action something Orme’s other work is interested in? Orme’s many other screenwriting credits include co-writing the screenplay for the 1942 film adaptation of Let The People Sing (1939), JB Priestley’s novel in which a washed-up music hall comedian teams up with a Czech political exile in order to save a local concert hall from being closed down and redeveloped by the organs of rapacious capitalism. The book, and the film, display Priestley’s own socialist convictions, but they are Priestley’s convictions and well-attested ones at that. They might have nothing to do with Geoffrey Orme. However, Orme’s original screenplay The Common Touch (1941) concerns a public schoolboy who inherits his father’s city finance firm, only to rebel against the values of the firm when he discovers that a local hostel for the homeless is going to be closed as a result of its investments.

Both films were produced and directed by John Baxter, remembered for Love on the Dole (1941) but whose career as a director, producer and (often uncredited) writer also incorporated films with comic acts like Flanagan and Allen, Arthur Askey and Arthur Lucan, often with Orme on writing or co-writing duties[15]. Although she does not advance the phrase herself, Barbara Emary, a producer on both the above films, concurs when her interviewer describes her collaborator Baxter as having ‘socialist leanings’[16].

The BFI sees Baxter’s work as defined by ‘the dignified humanity of ordinary working people struggling to overcome the hardships of modern life through mutual cooperation’. Now, no one is going to claim that as a description of The Underwater Menace, but then neither is it a description of Nothing Venture, which Orme wrote for Baxter to direct. That’s not a serious piece engaging with social issues in any sense. What it is, though, is a piece of vaguely metafictional coastal-set science fiction for children featuring a mad Eastern European scientist with an implausible plan. Yet The Underwater Menace is equally a story that presents us with an Atlantis as an alliance between religion, government[17] and industry which has to be overthrown by international workers’ solidarity. Which is far closer to Let The People Sing than Nothing Venture. Can we argue then, that The Underwater Menace is not only not an unusual example of Orme’s work, but that it combines multiple things that interested him? Or at least that it showcases simultaneously several things with which he had engaged professionally, but only individually and successively, rather than together.

To return to the question of the Fish People going on strike, but in another context: something which occasions even greater mirth about it is that this plot point is conveyed through a lengthy, and dialogue-free film sequence, often referred to as ‘the Fish People Ballet’ or variations thereupon. Fans have suggested[18], seemingly without any documentary foundation, that this sequence was the reason why episode 3 was one of the handful of 1967 Doctor Who episodes preserved by the BBC. There is irony here, as even in mocking this showpiece there is a recognition of its unusual and perhaps innovative nature. Doctor Who was a cheap-looking SF series for children, and this is – apparently – one of its cheapest-looking and most childish serials. Yet here in the middle of it is something so bafflingly odd, so boundary-pushing, that it’s hard to decide whether to call it avant garde or outsider art: a silent film sequence of slightly over 100 seconds, backed by groundbreaking electronic music which shows Doctor Who monsters demonstrating their common humanity by collective action. In the script this is covered by two sentences:

‘FISH PEOPLE passing the message one to the other. This is either a simple single SHOT SCENE, of may be expanded into something rather more rewarding if facilities allow, with attractive swimming SHOTS.’

Is it coincidental that the score for the fish people ballet seems to glance at the work of Ernest Berk[19], the German ballet dancer and avant garde composer, who curiously often performed in leotards with full face masks that are not un-reminiscent of those of the Fish People?[20] Berk’s wife Lisselotte ‘Lotte’ Berk was the creator of the Berk method of exercise, now more usually referred to as barre classes, which incorporate ballet moves and exercises into routines for non-ballet dancers. Her classes were well attended by actors for decades, and an early student of and later evangelist for the Berk method was Joan Collins, whose film debut Judgement Deferred (1952) had been directed by Baxter and written by Orme. We can make a pattern in the water here, if we want.

Is this silliness? Is this overreading? Is it just too much? Let’s take another example. It would be relatively easy to construct a case for The Underwater Menace as a conscious example of the carnivalesque, focusing on the grotesque body; a form identified by Mikhail Bakhtin in his hugely influential Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (1929) and developed in Rabelais and His World (1940). Sketching it in now, we can reference the religious animal/fish masks that characters wear; the way the costumes draw attention to Lolem’s belly[21]; how the story is based around the consumption (and denial of) food, to an extent that affects even the Doctor (‘I’ve never seen him go for food like this before!’ says Polly). The word ‘food’, which rarely comes up in Doctor Who, is said out loud 21 times in the story. The first three episodes all feature scenes of characters asking for and consuming food (by episode 4, all food production in Atlantis has stopped). Again, onscreen meals are a rarity in Doctor Who. Ramo says he hates Zaroff because he ‘appeals to all that is base in our people’. Carnivalesque is concerned with inversion and while Zaroff proposes to lift Atlantis, he in fact intends to lower the ocean. The Doctor defeats him by raising the ocean further. The world turned upside down.

Atlantis is a rigid hierarchical world which is almost literally and certainly figuratively turned over by the arrival of the clownish Doctor. This is something that is admittedly rather common in Doctor Who, but it is equally not very difficult to assert that The Underwater Menace itself batters against the usual parameters of Doctor Who as a form, using Bakhtin’s twin pressures of comedy and chaos. And aren’t the travellers brought to Atlantis in a lift where somehow the air pressure simultaneously increases and decreases? A key problem with this story for many is the question of how seriously we are meant to take it. But what if we are meant to wonder that? What if the slides from the genuinely unnerving, such as Polly being threatened on the operating table[22], to the gross and farcical are actually the point?

It is almost surprising no one has made these connections before; it would seem to be the key to understanding the entire story. At the very least Ann Lawrence of the avowedly Marxist The Daily Worker should have noticed, rather than dismissing the story out of hand. It’s the idea that unlocks everything which it is trying to achieve and explains all of its choices. But neither of the two books in which Bakhtin expounded these ideas had been published in English when The Underwater Menace was written and made. Unless Orme read Russian and had access to Soviet publications, it’s very much an example of an idea that doesn’t hold water. Orme could, of course, be pulling on some of the same threads as Bakhtin. The excess of real-life spring carnivals long pre-existed the Marxist theoretician’s formal analysis of it in the specific context of certain kinds of writing. But it’s almost certainly a conjecture too far; we’re a long way from Atlantis now.

Is The Underwater Menace simply juvenile science fiction, or is its script’s slightly ramshackle mix of a complex variety of influences deliberately tonally at odds with itself? A sophisticated, joyful carnivale grotesque that upsets many social norms, mixing broad humour and social critique and invoking the rights of workers on the way to a conclusion in which our hero literally destroys a civilisation in order to save it? Geoffrey Orme was not involved in John Baxter’s most famous film, Love on the Dole, although they worked together on other films released in the same year, so were clearly in contact at the time. Love on the Dole ends with a call for a ‘New Britain’, just as The Underwater Menace ends with a call for a ‘New Atlantis’. We can make a pattern here too, if we want, but like anything drawn in water, the shape will disappear before it is fully visible to the eye.

[1]

Emary worked her way up in British films over five decades. She started working on publicity campaigns aged 21, and eventually became a respected independent producer. She and Orme co-wrote at least half a dozen films in the 1940s, usually for director John Baxter.

Emary worked her way up in British films over five decades. She started working on publicity campaigns aged 21, and eventually became a respected independent producer. She and Orme co-wrote at least half a dozen films in the 1940s, usually for director John Baxter.

[2]

‘ Barbara K. Emary’

‘ Barbara K. Emary’

[3]

Orme’s Atlantis shares its approximate location, if nothing else, with Plato’s.

Orme’s Atlantis shares its approximate location, if nothing else, with Plato’s.

[4]

Orme to Davis, 27 November 1966.

Orme to Davis, 27 November 1966.

[5]

Whoever wrote the scene, the quote it incorporates is an appropriate opener for the story, given that taming the tide is both Zaroff’s ostensible objective and exactly what he fails to do.

Whoever wrote the scene, the quote it incorporates is an appropriate opener for the story, given that taming the tide is both Zaroff’s ostensible objective and exactly what he fails to do.

[6]

Twain’s death was prematurely reported in 1897 while he was away from America touring in Europe, and he quipped something along these lines upon being confronted with the reports.

Twain’s death was prematurely reported in 1897 while he was away from America touring in Europe, and he quipped something along these lines upon being confronted with the reports.

[7]

Although Gerry Davis often noted that both tops and tails of stories were his responsibility, so perhaps this is a ‘faux ami’.

Although Gerry Davis often noted that both tops and tails of stories were his responsibility, so perhaps this is a ‘faux ami’.

[8]

They are repeatedly referred to as ‘slaves’ in dialogue following their decision to withdraw their labour.

They are repeatedly referred to as ‘slaves’ in dialogue following their decision to withdraw their labour.

[9]

Wood and Miles, About Time Volume 2, p63.

Wood and Miles, About Time Volume 2, p63.

[10]

Is it even that exceptional? There is a vein of Doctor Who where industrial action has a heroic role to play, including The Monster of Peladon (1974), The Happiness Patrol (1988) and Oxygen (2017).

Is it even that exceptional? There is a vein of Doctor Who where industrial action has a heroic role to play, including The Monster of Peladon (1974), The Happiness Patrol (1988) and Oxygen (2017).

[11]

The novelisation describes Jacko as ‘West Indian’ (i.e. a man of African heritage from the North Atlantic/Caribbean islands) but this is not specified in the script. The actor who plays him, Paul Anil was born Anil Paul Mukerjee in South Africa, and was of North Indian Bengali descent. Most of his screen work as an actor involved playing specifically Indian characters, e.g. in A Passage to India and The Jewel in the Crown (both 1984).

The novelisation describes Jacko as ‘West Indian’ (i.e. a man of African heritage from the North Atlantic/Caribbean islands) but this is not specified in the script. The actor who plays him, Paul Anil was born Anil Paul Mukerjee in South Africa, and was of North Indian Bengali descent. Most of his screen work as an actor involved playing specifically Indian characters, e.g. in A Passage to India and The Jewel in the Crown (both 1984).

[12]

Some of which, to be fair, seem to have evolved in rehearsals and probably came from actor PG Stephens, who often played this sort of part.

Some of which, to be fair, seem to have evolved in rehearsals and probably came from actor PG Stephens, who often played this sort of part.

[13]

Another example in Doctor Who in this period is Bermuda-born actor Earl Cameron as Astronaut Williams in The Tenth Planet. There is no plot reason at all for this character to be black, but also no good reason for him not to be. For more on colour-blind casting in early Doctor Who, see Moore, Fiona, The Black Archive: The Robots of Death.

Another example in Doctor Who in this period is Bermuda-born actor Earl Cameron as Astronaut Williams in The Tenth Planet. There is no plot reason at all for this character to be black, but also no good reason for him not to be. For more on colour-blind casting in early Doctor Who, see Moore, Fiona, The Black Archive: The Robots of Death.

[14]

It is possible Jacko, like Ben, is a victim of the rewriting of the serial to accommodate the addition of Jamie to the series’ regular cast.

It is possible Jacko, like Ben, is a victim of the rewriting of the serial to accommodate the addition of Jamie to the series’ regular cast.

[15]

Baxter-directed films on which Orme is a credited writer include, but are not limited to, Lucan vehicles Old Mother Riley in Business, Old Mother Riley’s Ghosts (both 1941), the Flanagan and Allen starring Theatre Royal (1943) and Here Comes the Sun (1948)

Baxter-directed films on which Orme is a credited writer include, but are not limited to, Lucan vehicles Old Mother Riley in Business, Old Mother Riley’s Ghosts (both 1941), the Flanagan and Allen starring Theatre Royal (1943) and Here Comes the Sun (1948)

[16]

Napper, Lawrence, ‘Baxter, John (1896-1975)’

Napper, Lawrence, ‘Baxter, John (1896-1975)’

[17]

Orme notes in a 27 November 1966 communication with Davis that Smith is keen to retain Thous’ role as a representative of ‘civil authority’ separate from Lolem’s religious authority, suggesting that much of this is deliberate.

Orme notes in a 27 November 1966 communication with Davis that Smith is keen to retain Thous’ role as a representative of ‘civil authority’ separate from Lolem’s religious authority, suggesting that much of this is deliberate.

[18]

E.g. ‘Archive: The Underwater Menace’, DWM #209.

E.g. ‘Archive: The Underwater Menace’, DWM #209.

[19]

An innovative artiste, Berk was well known amongst theatre and television professionals in the 1960s, even those unfamiliar with his work, due to the popularity of his wife’s exercise regime.

An innovative artiste, Berk was well known amongst theatre and television professionals in the 1960s, even those unfamiliar with his work, due to the popularity of his wife’s exercise regime.

[20]

Readers are asked to google for the cover image and musical content of Berk’s Electronic Music for Two Ballets (Trunk Records, JBH081LP) and judge for themselves. Is it too much to contemplate that Ben calling the Doctor a ‘berk’ in episode 4 is a deliberate nod?

Readers are asked to google for the cover image and musical content of Berk’s Electronic Music for Two Ballets (Trunk Records, JBH081LP) and judge for themselves. Is it too much to contemplate that Ben calling the Doctor a ‘berk’ in episode 4 is a deliberate nod?

[21]

If the story is endorsing the Bakhtinian notion of the body as pure in an impure world, then Zaroff’s violation of that purity, in his enforced surgical mutilations of humans to make them Fish People, and then his putting them to work as slaves, is about as comprehensive an assault on the story’s own ethics as can be imagined.

If the story is endorsing the Bakhtinian notion of the body as pure in an impure world, then Zaroff’s violation of that purity, in his enforced surgical mutilations of humans to make them Fish People, and then his putting them to work as slaves, is about as comprehensive an assault on the story’s own ethics as can be imagined.

[22]

Anneke Wills herself, no fan of the serial, has noted this is ‘really quite frightening’ (CD extras, track 47).

Anneke Wills herself, no fan of the serial, has noted this is ‘really quite frightening’ (CD extras, track 47).

APPENDIX A: ‘VITAL SECRET WILL DIE WITH ME. DR. W’

In The Underwater Menace episode 1, Patrick Troughton’s character sends a note to Professor Zaroff. It is signed ‘Dr. W.’. The Underwater Menace’s incomplete and derided nature, and the unavailability to even hardcore fans of the serial’s scripts and tele-snaps until the mid-nineties (see Chapter 2) have often led to this, one of the more prominent examples of the central character of the series Doctor Who being overtly identified with that title within the fiction, being overlooked[1].

For some, the idea that the lead character of the series Doctor Who should, or even could, be referred to as ‘Doctor Who’, is anathema. Log into any social media platform you like and with a quick search you’ll easily find people ‘correcting’ those who refer to the character as ‘Doctor Who’. For those with only a passing cultural knowledge of the show, the idea that the lead of Doctor Who might not be called ‘Doctor Who’ is just odd. It’s his (and latterly her) show, after all. For those who care passionately about the programme, or even simply once did, the fact that the character had, at least until 2017, never explicitly introduced themself as such (with dialogue largely preferring phrases such as ‘I am known as “The Doctor”’) was an important detail of the series’, and character’s, sense of self.

It’s an argument that has bounced around Doctor Who fan circles for decades. There’s even a bit of easily-reached-for fan argot, even cliché, (‘Doctor Who is just the name of the series!’) to cover it. But this isn’t just a matter for fans. When Doctor Who works it’s a mass audience phenomenon, part of the fabric of UK culture, and commented upon accordingly. This means that, for example, the style guide for the Guardian newspaper has its own opinion on the matter, insisting that the programme is called Doctor Who, but that its lead character should always be referred to as ‘the Doctor’.

The Guardian’s stance is unusual. Media coverage, whether for simplicity’s sake or otherwise, has almost always used the terms ‘the Doctor’ and ‘Doctor Who’ as synonymous and interchangeable, the latter referring to both the character and the series. That’s partially to save space, of course, and for some it rankles. It shows, it’s felt, a lack of attention to detail and respect because, well, Doctor Who is just the name of the series. The same feelings are extended to the general public who, as a rule, treat the terms interchangeably as well.

But it’s not clear cut. Terminology is as much about usage and utility as absolute accuracy. No one feels compelled to refer to Prince William’s wife as ‘Princess William of Wales’, the correct form of her title in law, or even the Duchess of Cambridge, preferring to call her ‘Kate Middleton’, which was once her name but is no longer, or ‘Princess Kate’, which definitely isn’t her name now, and almost certainly never will be. No one pops up on Tumblr to point that one out with the regularity of a pre-programmed bot, and at least someone who did so would be definitely right to begin with, which is by no means clear when it comes to ‘Doctor Who’.

It’s not only an odd bit of terminology policing, it’s also an asymmetric argument, one between those who would banish any usage other than ‘the Doctor’ and others who would prefer to be able to use a variety of interlinked terms (chiefly ‘the Doctor’, ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Dr Who’, ‘Dr. Who’) depending on context. It’s got so out of hand in recent years that 12th Doctor Peter Capaldi’s childhood letter to the Radio Times concerning Planet of the Spiders (1974) has been denounced online as a fake (it isn’t) because he refers to the character as ‘Dr Who’ throughout. The idea being that a ‘real’ fan would not call the character any such thing, with refusal to do so being a sort of secret passcode or demonstration of appropriate levels of knowledge.

The main problem with this conversation (other than that it exists at all) is that it almost always elides two or three similar questions, and demands they have a single answer. This is either a bit conceptually loose, or simply disingenuous, depending on who is doing it. If we’re going to deal with this issue properly, we’ll need to break those questions out separately and see what happens.

Is ‘Doctor Who’ the Name of the Lead Character of the Series?

No, it’s not. The Name of the Doctor (2013) revolves around how the character has a secret, original name that no one knows, a plot point first raised in this century in 2006’s The Girl In The Fireplace. Both stories were written by Steven Moffat, as was 2008’s Forest of the Dead, in which River Song tells the Doctor she knows what his real name is, and proves it by whispering it in his ear. Moffat’s tenure as head writer of the series is littered with other references to the Doctor’s secret real name, and him having chosen ‘the Doctor’ as a public replacement for it. One example is Clara reading the Doctor’s real name in the book The History of the Time War in Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS (2013), while a demand that the Doctor reveal his real name forms a crucial plot point in both The Name of the Doctor and The Time of the Doctor (2013). The Day of the Doctor (2013) features three separate incarnations of the Time Lord reminiscing about the day that they ‘made a promise’ to be ‘never cruel or cowardly, never give in, never give up’ and how this was when they left their old name behind and became the Doctor we know now.

This idea of a secret name isn’t solely confined to the Moffat era, though. In 2007’s The Sound of Drums, the Master teases the Doctor about having chosen his title (‘The man who makes people better, how sanctimonious is that?’) and in The Shakespeare Code (2007), the witch Lilith cannot divine the Doctor’s real name even by using witchcraft (‘There is no name!’). In The Fires of Pompeii (2008) the prophetess Evelina says the Doctor’s ‘true name is hidden from me’ even as she tries to tell his future. The radio serial Slipback (1985) has companion Peri inform an aggressive policeman that she doesn’t know the Doctor’s real name and that he has always maintained to her that she wouldn’t be able to pronounce it. (This, unfortunately, convinces the policeman that ‘the Doctor’ is an alias for his quarry, the criminal Shellingbourne Grant.)

As long ago as 1972 the original edition of the official The Making of Doctor Who book announced that the Doctor’s ‘real’ name was a string of mathematical symbols, ‘δ³Σx²’. That’s not on television, of course, but The Making of Doctor Who was co-written by Terrance Dicks, then the series’ script editor and in effect co-showrunner, so might be seen as having the full force of the then production office behind it. Intriguingly, the symbols later appeared carved into the Tomb of Rassilon in The Five Doctors, also written by Dicks, perhaps positing a link between the Doctor and ancient Gallifrey in the process. Perhaps more significantly, a later edition of the same book is the source of the phrase ‘never cruel or cowardly, never give in, never give up,’ used in The Day of the Doctor.

What’s interesting is that under Doctor Who’s original producer Verity Lambert the series’ lead never introduces himself onscreen. He is either introduced to guest characters by other members of the regular cast or characters learn to call him this offscreen (e.g. at the end of ‘The Dimensions of Time’[2]). The closest he gets is saying ‘They call me the Doctor,’ in ‘The Warriors of Death’[3]. Once Lambert has gone we get a few near misses (‘You must call me Doctor,’ in ‘Horse of Destruction’[4], ‘I prefer Doctor’ in ‘The Feast of Steven’[5]). Under Lambert, though, the practice is so completely observed that it must be deliberate policy. It never seems to have been put on paper, at least not on a piece of paper which has survived. (This is something we’ll come back to later.)

In the first episode of Doctor Who, ‘An Unearthly Child’ (1963), we are initially introduced to the character and his possible alias through Ian Chesterton’s (possibly faulty) recollections of something he’s learned about Susan’s Grandfather. ‘He’s some sort of doctor, isn’t he?’ he asks Barbara, who can neither confirm nor deny this dubious fact, presumably gleaned from Susan school records. The next week, in ‘The Cave of Skulls’, Ian addresses William Hartnell’s character as ‘Doctor Foreman’, combining this recollection of a possible degree with the surname Susan has adopted at school, and which she has taken from the gates of the junkyard in which the TARDIS has been hidden. ‘Eh? Doctor Who? What’s he talking about?’ is Hartnell’s nonplussed reply, which could be seen as a disavowal of ‘Doctor Who’, but also of ‘Foreman’ and indeed ‘Doctor’. Later in the same episode, Barbara also refers to ‘Doctor Foreman’ and Ian replies ‘That’s not his name. Who is he? Doctor who? Perhaps if we knew his name, we might have a clue to all this.’ It may even be that the Doctor has never been called ‘Doctor’ before Ian does so. Which is all very interesting, albeit not terribly compatible with The Sound of Drums and The Day of the Doctor without a lot of squinting and sticking your fingers in your ears[6] .

So, no, it’s not his original name. And while he has adopted a new one for (almost) all public purposes, he doesn’t regard his original name as dead and buried either, calling it ‘my name’ rather than ‘my old name’ in both Forest of the Dead and The Wedding of River Song (2011), amongst others.

Round one to the ‘Don’t call him “Doctor Who”’ brigade then? Well, no. Because, while the above is all true, and conveniently proves that the character’s name isn’t textually ‘Doctor Who’, it also inconveniently proves that the character’s name isn’t textually ‘the Doctor’ either. Wrong criterion.

Is the Character Called ‘Doctor Who’ Within the Fiction?

This is a different question to the one above, though it’s frequently treated as though it isn’t. I often call my baby son ‘Dame Shirley Bassey’ on account of his frequent need for costume changes. That doesn’t make it his name, but it does make it something that people call him. The same applies with fictional characters, not least the Doctor. The Doctor has also been known as ‘Theta Sigma’, a ‘nickname at college’ revealed in The Armageddon Factor (1979) and discussed again in The Happiness Patrol (1988), for example. He’s been more frequently referred to as ‘John Smith’, an alias first applied in The Wheel in Space (1968) and used periodically ever since, in stories like Spearhead from Space, The Time Warrior (1973-74), School Reunion (2006) and The Caretaker (2014), amongst many others. It even managed to find its way into the title of Smith and Jones (2007).

If we’re agreed then, and surely we can’t not be, that Theta Sigma and John Smith are, like ‘the Doctor’, not the character’s name, but things that he’s sometimes called within the fiction, then we’ve established a principle that will be useful later. But first some examples to go with it.

In ‘A Holiday for the Doctor’ (The Gunfighters episode 1), Bat Masterson asks ‘Doctor who?’ when he mishears Hartnell’s character introduce himself using the pseudonym ‘Doctor Caligari’, and gets the reply ‘Yes, quite right,’ from the old man. Later that year The War Machines episodes 1 and 2 (1966) both featured scenes where the computer WOTAN and its various subordinates repeatedly refer to the series’ lead character as ‘Doctor Who’. In The Highlanders the Doctor, affecting a German accent, assumes the alias Doctor Von Wer (which is bad German for ‘Doctor of Who’).

Throughout the series from 1970 to 1975 the Doctor, exiled to Earth for much of that period, drives a yellow vintage tourer called ‘Bessie’ which sports the number plate ‘WHO 1’. Are we expected to accept the argument that within the text itself, the Doctor has not chosen a car with the vanity number plate (which is completely in character, after all), but has instead acquired one wholly by accident and just not noticed? One of the stories that features Bessie is 1971’s The Daemons. Co-written by Barry Letts, one of the most significant creative figures in the entire history of the programme (he remains Doctor Who’s only writer/director/producer/executive producer), it features the white witch Miss Hawthorne christening the Doctor ‘the wizard Quiquaequod’. That’s the masculine, feminine and neutral nominative forms for ‘Who’ in Latin, in case you’re wondering. Elsewhere in the Pertwee era, there’s a joke about the character being called ‘Doctor Who’ at the end of episode 4 of The Curse of Peladon (1972).

In 1980 the story Meglos sees the Doctor impersonated by a giant cactus, meaning both characters are played by Tom Baker. When explaining this situation to his old friend Zastor, the Doctor opines that ‘That’s the trouble with doppelgangers, you never know who’s Who!’ and you can hear the capital on that final word. In Doctor Who spin off K-9 and Company (1981) the Doctor’s robot dog is asked ‘Who is the Doctor?’ and replies ‘Affirmative’. Silver Nemesis (1988) sees another witch, Lady Peinforte ask ‘Doctor Who? Have you never wondered where he came from? Who he is?’, with actress Fiona Walker’s delivery deliberately splitting the difference between her asking a question and simply using a longer version of the Doctor’s title.

In the 21st century series, Matt Smith’s version of the character seems to embrace being referred to as ‘Doctor Who’, and not solely by being on the end of a question. (Although it is phrased as one in multiple Smith stories, including The Wedding of River Song and The Angels Take Manhattan (2012).) He asks Clara to repeat it in The Bells of St John (2013), and enjoys saying it out loud himself enough in Asylum of the Daleks (2012) to dance around the TARDIS console while doing so. Nice work if you can get it.

What all these references add up to is the unavoidable fact that textually, within the fiction itself, the series’ lead character has sometimes been called ‘Doctor Who’ by others, that he is aware of this, and that he has occasionally referred to himself likewise. It doesn’t matter that he’s referred to as ‘the Doctor’ more often. No one is trying to say you can’t call him ‘the Doctor’, just that you can call him ‘Doctor Who’ as well, and all that’s required is to demonstrate that both he and other people have.

So, the answer to the question above is ‘Yes, he is.’ You can ignore that, but you can’t dispute it. What’s probably better than either is to explain it. Which we’ll come to in a moment.

Is the Character Called ‘Doctor Who’ Outside the Fiction?

This is the real question, to be honest. After all, online ‘corrections’ of people referring to the character as something other than ‘The Doctor’ don’t occur in the context of Doctor Who-related fiction, but rather in the real world, or at any rate as close as online gets to it.

And the answer is easy. ‘Of course, yes’.

From 1963 to 1973 the character was usually credited onscreen as ‘Dr. Who’, switching to ‘Doctor Who’ from 1974 to 1981. Only from 1982 to 1989 was the character credited as ‘The Doctor’. When the series returned in 2005 it was back to ‘Doctor Who’, only to be changed for The Christmas Invasion (2005) at the request of incoming star David Tennant. It’s stayed that ever since (apart from The Next Doctor (2008), for some reason), but as it stands the majority of Doctor Who episodes’ end credits use the W word.

For some, this isn’t enough. This point is said to be like arguing that that the character most recently played by Daniel Craig is called ‘Ian Fleming’s James Bond 007’. But to raise this objection, or others analogically similar, is to try and answer our third question with a rebuttal of our first. No one thinks that Craig’s character’s name is ‘Ian Fleming’s James Bond 007’. No one thinks that should the series find it necessary to show his passport, ID card, or scuba diver’s teaching certificate that this is what would be written on it. It’s a classic strawman.

It’s not just the end credits that, outwith the fiction, consider it okay to call the character ‘Doctor Who’. Doctor Who’s creator Sydney Newman would routinely refer to the character as ‘Doctor Who’. So did Verity Lambert, both her script editors, David Whitaker and Dennis Spooner, and her star William Hartnell. Of the actors to play the part, Troughton, Pertwee, Tom Baker, Paul McGann, Christopher Eccleston, Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi have done the same. Certainly, Pertwee was confident enough that his character was called ‘Doctor Who’ that he named a small car shaped like a hovercraft he wanted to see used in the series ‘The Whomobile’ (which had the in-fiction number plate WVO 2M – presumably that’s another coincidence?)

For almost all the series’ 20th-century production history vast numbers of pieces of paper connected to the production office refer to the character as ‘Dr Who’ or ‘Doctor Who’. Scripts. Contracts. Radio Times billings. Press releases. Shooting schedules. Design documents. Costume labels for the series’ leads. You name it, it’s got ‘Who’ on it, and considerably more than nine times out of ten. If you have any of the sets of CDs of wiped 1960s stories that include PDFs of the scripts, crack them open and have a read. It’s there on nearly every page.

Between 1973 and 1982 Target Books published more than 70 Doctor Who novelisations that were titled ‘Doctor Who and the…’ [something something]. It would seem a stretch to argue that all of these, around 50 of them written by Terrance Dicks, all managed to be signed off by accident – through a series of regular monthly oversights when no one who knew that it was wrong happened to be in the office. Other series’ script editors and producers, such as Gerry Davis, and Philip Hinchcliffe (producer from 1975 to 1977) had multiple novels published using this title formulation without it worrying them[7]. Barry Letts’ 1974 novelisation Doctor Who and the Daemons begins its first chapter with the words ‘Doctor Who was a happy man’. Doctor Who and the Zarbi, one of the first Doctor Who novelisations (published in 1965 by another company and reprinted by Target) uses the term ‘Doctor Who’ on almost every single occasion the character is referred to throughout the entire book.

Under Lambert there was an episode of the programme called ‘The Death of Doctor Who’ . The 1966 episode ‘The OK Corral’ promises that the next week’s episode will be called ‘Dr. Who and the Savages’. In 1970, under Letts, there was a serial called Doctor Who and the Silurians. This has been acknowledged as a mistake by the then production team, which is then used to write it off as a proper usage of the term. But that ignores the nature of the mistake. By 1970 it was practice, as it had been for many years, for scripts to carry the ‘Doctor Who and the’ identification in front of the individual story title, but for this to not be included in the opening credits. On this occasion, with the series’ producer changing during the serial’s active production, the fine distinction was missed. But the mistake doesn’t prove it’s wrong to call the character ‘Doctor Who’. The mistake demonstrates that the production team were calling him ‘Doctor Who’ on the front of scripts. Incidentally, the serial’s director Tim Coombe insists to this day that Doctor Who And The Silurians is simply what the story is called.

Letts clearly didn’t regret it anyway. As late as 1995 he wrote a BBC Radio 2 Doctor Who serial entitled Doctor Who and the Ghosts of N-Space, its title boomed out by announcer over the opening of every episode. You can hear it now if it you buy it on iTunes, CD or vinyl.

So why the disconnect? Why is the character incredibly frequently called ‘Doctor Who’ or ‘Dr Who’ when it’s written down, but almost never when it’s spoken out loud? And when did it become a point of contention? Let’s be traditional, and answer those questions in order.

In April 1964, Doctor Who’s then script editor Dennis Spooner wrote to World Distributors, producers of the Doctor Who Annual insisting that the character ‘only be referred to as Dr Who’ in their publications[8]. By this he didn’t mean that he should be strictly referred to as such at all times but rather that references to the character as ‘Dr Who’ should either be confined to text of captions, or descriptions, but not from himself. That it was okay in descriptions, but not really in dialogue. Doesn’t this seem familiar? It should. It’s exactly what we witness through much of the 20th-century series, following the cue of Verity Lambert’s own time in charge[9]. Until the 1980s.

So, what happened? Well, in the 1980s Doctor Who’s producer John Nathan-Turner courted Doctor Who fandom, taking opinions and even advice from figures within the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, some of whom became very close to the production office. The wholesale rejection of calling the character Doctor Who dates from this time. The series’ end credits were changed between Logopolis (March 1981) and Castrovalva (January 1982). This was the time of fandom’s adolescence. The series was 18 years old and most of its hardcore fans were between 14 and 25 (although it still had a substantial audience of children). Fandom had reached physical maturity, but not adulthood, and was on a crusade to be taken seriously, to purge silliness from perceptions of the programme. It was also about this time that denials that Doctor Who was a programme for children began to circulate with some force. (‘It’s made by the drama department!’ is the fan argot for that one.)

This was also, oddly, the period when BBC Two ran a much heralded repeat run of stories from 1963 to 1981 entitled The Five Faces of Doctor Who and also exactly when K-9 and Company, with its ‘Who is the Doctor’ gag, was produced and transmitted. It’s not impossible that the changeover and the objection that caused it were prompted by these, from a certain fan perspective, egregious examples of putting the ‘Who’ in ‘Doctor’. Shortly afterwards, the ‘Doctor Who and…’ formulation was abandoned by Target at the production team’s request.

The idea that the lead character and the series were synonymous was being driven out. It didn’t entirely work, as even a cursory glance at press or television coverage of any time the character is recast or a new series is launched will show, but this was pretty much the intention. An intention which originates, surely, in an instinctive fear that a TV series about a time travelling magician in a magic box is too silly when the character is called Doctor Who, but entirely sensible they are called the Doctor.

As a position, that is sillier than anything it is condemning. It’s possibly even as silly as writing an entire book about Doctor Who and the Underwater Menace.

[1]

Strikingly, in the script the signature is simply ‘Dr Who’. As scripted we also see the Doctor writing the note, rather than – as on screen – the audience being unaware of its content until Zaroff is.

Strikingly, in the script the signature is simply ‘Dr Who’. As scripted we also see the Doctor writing the note, rather than – as on screen – the audience being unaware of its content until Zaroff is.

[2]

The Space Museum episode 2 (1965).

The Space Museum episode 2 (1965).

[3]

The Aztecs episode 2 (1964).

The Aztecs episode 2 (1964).

[4]

The Myth Makers episode 4 (1965).

The Myth Makers episode 4 (1965).

[5]

The Daleks’ Masterplan episode 7 (1965).

The Daleks’ Masterplan episode 7 (1965).

[6] However, Fugitive of the Judoon and The Timeless Children (both 2020) reveal that at least one previously unknown incarnation of this Time Lord prior to that played by William Hartnell went by the alias the Doctor, suggesting they have been through this decision making process at least twice.

[7] It must in fairness be noted that Hinchcliffe’s script editor, Robert Holmes, took the opposite view.

[8] Magrs, Paul, The Annual Years, p9.

[9]

The sub-era where so many of the most overt uses cluster around each other is the Lloyd-Davis period of the programme. In serials such as The Underwater Menace, is perhaps indicative of the lack of institutional memory in the Doctor Who of 1966 and 1967. The fine distinction Spooner tried to make being lost to a series that had replaced almost every moving part at least once over the course of six months.

The sub-era where so many of the most overt uses cluster around each other is the Lloyd-Davis period of the programme. In serials such as The Underwater Menace, is perhaps indicative of the lack of institutional memory in the Doctor Who of 1966 and 1967. The fine distinction Spooner tried to make being lost to a series that had replaced almost every moving part at least once over the course of six months.

APPENDIX B: PRODUCTION TIMELINE

Dates are taken from BBC documentation, and are not exhaustive. Details of some other stories in active production while The Underwater Menace was being written and shot are included in order to give a fuller idea of the schedule on which Doctor Who was produced.

Tuesday 16 August 1966

‘Dr Who Under The Sea’, intended as serial FF, is commissioned from Geoffrey Orme.

Tuesday 30 August 1966

‘Culloden’ (later The Highlanders) a historical adventure set on the eponymous battlefield in April 1746, is commissioned from Elwyn Jones with the intention it be made as serial GG or HH.

Monday 5 September 1966

Projected delivery date for first drafts of all four episodes of ‘Dr Who Under The Sea’.

Early October 1966

Hugh David, assigned to direct serial FF, expresses concerns about the practical aspects of realising Orme’s story on budget and schedule.

Wednesday 12 October 1966

It is agreed ‘Culloden’ will be brought forward to be made as serial FF, with ‘Dr Who Under The Sea’ now deferred until a later date. Unfortunately Jones has not yet commenced work on the scripts for ‘Culloden’.

Monday 17 October 1966

‘Dr Who and the Imps’, intended as a replacement serial GG, is commissioned from William Emms.

Monday 31 October 1966

William Emms delivers first drafts of all four episodes of ‘Dr Who and the Imps’, one day ahead of schedule.

Tuesday 8 November 1966

Julia Smith arranges a meeting with designer Raymond London, Costume Designer Sandra Reid and Make Up Supervisor Gillian James to discuss ‘Dr Who and the Imps’. Smith has not yet seen the scripts.

Wednesday 9 November 1966

With William Emms ill, and unable to rewrite his scripts immediately, ‘Dr Who and The Imps’ is pushed back to become serial HH. Orme’s story, which has become ‘Dr Who and the Fish People’ in the interim, will now be made as serial GG.

Wednesday 16 November 1966

Orme submits new drafts of episodes 1 to 3 of ‘Dr Who and the Fish People’ in two separate parcels, one containing the first two episodes and another sent later in the day containing the third. In his covering letter to the first parcel Orme wonders if another change of title is needed.

Friday 18 November 1966

Costuming for Serial GG is formally decided between director Smith and Costume Designer Sandra Reid. At this point, a female scientist character called Steen is expected to appear in episodes 2 and 4, Damon is only in episodes 1 and 2 and Lolem is to appear in all four episodes.

Sunday 20 November 1966

Geoffrey Orme submits a new draft of episode 4 of ‘Dr Who and the Fish People’.

Tuesday 22 November 1966

Orme has a meeting with Gerry Davis, where further redrafts of all four episodes are requested.

Thursday 24 November 1966

Innes Lloyd agrees with his superiors to create a new version of Doctor Who’s opening titles featuring Patrick Troughton’s face. This is charged to The Power of the Daleks episode 6. It is intended that this will debut on the first episode of Serial GG, but it is put back until the first episode of HH.

Sunday 27 November 1966

Revised episodes 4 and 1 of ‘Dr Who and the Fish People’ submitted by Orme, in that order, and in two separate parcels sent to Gerry Davis.

A third parcel sends revised versions of episodes 2 and 3 to director Julia Smith, as these are more urgently needed and Davis will not be available on Monday morning.

Monday 28 November 1966

Geoffrey Orme meets with Julia Smith at BBC Threshold House to discuss the scripts for episodes 2 and 3.

Tuesday 29 November 1966

A further revision of episode 4 of ‘Dr Who and the Fish People’ is delivered.

Julia Smith writes to Joseph Furst, in addition to sending him an offer through his agent, asking him to play Professor Zaroff.

Wednesday 30 November 1966

Joseph Furst telephones Julia Smith to informally accept the role of Zaroff.

Saturday 3 December 1966

Recording for The Highlanders episode 1 at Riverside Studio 1.

Thursday 8 December 1966

Scripts for all four episodes of Orme’s story are issued to the principal cast. The scripts now bear the title ‘Doctor Who and the Underwater Menace’, except for episode 3, which is ‘Doctor Who and the Fish People’. Furst’s copy of the script has a cover note in which Smith points out that with the story’s name revised again he is now playing the title character.

Saturday 10 December 1966

Recording for The Highlanders episode 2 at Riverside Studio 1.

Monday 12 December 1966

Location filming for The Underwater Menace at Windspit Caverns in Dorset. This consists of establishing shots and the cast are not required on this day. They rehearse at St Helen’s Church Hall, Kensington, in the morning and travel to Windspit in the afternoon for the next day’s shoot.

Formal permission is granted for Doctor Who’s story editor Gerry Davis to write The Highlanders and be credited as co-writer with Jones. He has already written the scripts, and two of them have been shot.

Tuesday 13 December 1966

Location filming for The Underwater Menace at Windspit Caverns in Dorset. This features the regular cast, PG Stephens (Sean), Paul Anil (Jacko) and three extras.

Wednesday 14 December 1966

Filming for The Underwater Menace at BBC Ealing Television Film Studios. (Model sequences and Zaroff’s drowning.) Joseph Furst required.

Thursday 15 December 1966

Filming for The Underwater Menace at BBC Ealing Television Film Studios. (Fish People ‘Ballet’.)

Friday 16 December 1966

Filming for The Underwater Menace at BBC Ealing Television Film Studios. (Sean and Jacko taunting the Fish People in the morning; Jamie escaping a rockfall in the afternoon.)

Saturday 17 December 1966

The Highlanders episode 1 shown on BBC One.

Recording for The Highlanders episode 3 at Riverside Studio 1.

Saturday 24 December 1966 (Christmas Eve)

The Highlanders Episode 2 shown on BBC One.

Recording for The Highlanders episode 4 at Riverside Studio 1.

Saturday 31 December 1966 (New Year’s Eve)

The Highlanders Episode 3 shown on BBC One.

Scheduled recording for The Underwater Menace episode 1 at Riverside Studio 1 (cancelled).

Thursday 4 January 1966

David Whitaker delivers a storyline for what will become The Evil of the Daleks (Serial LL), the second episode of which, at this stage, is intended to write Ben and Polly out of Doctor Who.

Saturday 6 January 1967

The Highlanders episode 4 shown on BBC One.

Recording for The Underwater Menace Episode 1 at Riverside Studio 1.

Doctor Who is now being recorded less than a week ahead of broadcast.

Tuesday 10 January 1967

‘Dr Who and the Imps’ is formally abandoned by the Doctor Who production office.

Serial HH will be ‘Doctor Who On The Moon’, aka The Moonbase, by Kit Pedler.

Saturday 14 January 1967

The Underwater Menace episode 1 shown on BBC One.

Recording for The Underwater Menace episode 2 at Riverside Studio 1.

Tuesday 17 January 1967 – Friday 20 January 1967

Pre-filming for The Moonbase at the BBC Ealing Television Film Studios.

Saturday 21 January 1967

The Underwater Menace Episode 2 shown on BBC One.

Recording for The Underwater Menace episode 3 at Riverside Studio 1.

Saturday 28 January 1967

The Underwater Menace episode 3 shown on BBC One.

Recording for The Underwater Menace episode 4 at Riverside Studio 1.

Saturday 4 February 1967

The Underwater Menace episode 4 shown on BBC One.

Recording for The Moonbase episode 1 at Riverside Studio 1.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Bakhtin, Mikhail, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, 1929.

Bakhtin, Mikhail, Rabelais and His World, 1940.

Cooray Smith, James, The Massacre. The Black Archive #2. Edinburgh, Obverse Books, 2016. ISBN 9781909031388.

Cornell, Paul, Martin Day and Keith Topping, Doctor Who: The Discontinuity Guide. London, Doctor Who Books, 1995. ISBN 9780426204428.

Howe, David J, Mark Stammers and Steven James Walker, Doctor Who: The Handbook - The Second Doctor. London, Virgin Publishing,1997. ISBN 9780426205166.

Hulke, Malcolm and Terrance Dicks, The Making of Doctor Who. London, W H Allen, 1972. ISBN 9780426116158.

Magrs, Paul, The Annual Years. Edinburgh, Obverse Books, 2014. ISBN 9781909031258.

Miller, Keith, The Official Doctor Who Fan Club Volume 1: The Jon Pertwee Years. Edinburgh, Pegimount Press, 2012. ISBN 9780957370401.

Molesworth, Richard, Wiped! Doctor Who’s Missing Episodes Prestatyn, Telos Publishing Ltd, 2010. ISBN 9781845830373.

October, Dene, Marco Polo. The Black Archive #18. Edinburgh, Obverse Books, 2018. ISBN 9781909031678.

Shearman, Robert, and Toby Hadoke, Running Through Corridors Volume 1: The 60s - Rob and Toby’s Marathon Watch of Doctor Who. Des Moines, Mad Norwegian Press, 2010. ISBN 9781935234067.

Robson, Eddie, Jim Smith and Mark Clapham, Who’s Next: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who. London, Virgin Books, 2005. ISBN 9780753509487.

Robinson, Nigel, Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace. The Target Doctor Who Library #129. London, Virgin Publishing, 1988. ISBN 9780426203261.

Wood, Tat, and Lawrence Miles, About Time 2: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who 1966-1969 – Seasons 4 to 6. Des Moines, Mad Norwegian Press, 2006. ISBN 9780975944615.

Periodicals

Doctor Who Magazine (DWM). Marvel UK, Panini, BBC, 1979-.

Landen, Richard, ‘Patrick Troughton’, DWM #78, cover date July 1983.

Marson, Richard, ‘Interview with Patrick Troughton’ DWM #102, cover date July 1985.

‘Twenty Five Years of Turkeys!’, DWM #144, cover date January 1989.

‘Off The Shelf’, DWM #187, cover date May 1992.

Pixley, Andrew, ‘Archive: The Underwater Menace’, DWM #209, cover date January 1994.

Bishop, Vanessa, ‘Off The Shelf’, DWM #353, cover date February 2005.

Griffiths, Peter, ‘The Mighty 200!’ DWM #413, cover date October 2009.

Griffiths, Peter, ‘Doctor Who: The First 50 Years’, DWM #474, cover date July 2014.

‘The Doctors - Re-mastered! The History of Doctor Who on Home Video - Part Three 1999-2013, DWM #488, cover date August 2015.

‘Gallifrey Guardian’ DWM #491, cover date November 2015.

‘The DWM Review’, DWM #492, cover date December 2015.

Kibble-White, Graham, ‘Off the Shelf’, DWM #593, cover date December 2015.

Marson, Richard, ‘Interview with Julia Smith’ DWM Autumn Special 1987.

Mulkern, Patrick, ‘Interview with Hugh David’, DWM Summer Special 1986.

DWM Special Edition #35 The Missing Episodes: The Second Doctor Volume One, 2013.

Lawrence, Ann, ‘Television’, Daily Worker, January 25 1967.

Radio Times. BBC Magazines, 1937-2011.

‘Dr Who in a New Adventure Under the Sea’, Radio Times, cover date 14-20 January 1967.

Doctor Who Tenth Anniversary Special, Nov 1973.

Television

Doctor Who, BBC, 1963-.

The Moonbase, 1967. DVD release, 2014.

‘Lunar Landing’. DVD extra.

The Underwater Menace, 1967. DVD release, 2015.

‘A Fishy Tale’. DVD extra.

DVD Commentary

Pebble Mill at One BBC, 1972-86.

‘Marian Foster interview with Patrick Troughton’, 21 December 1973.

Taggart, STV Productions, 1983-2010.

My Hero, BBC, 2000-06.

Film

Let The People Sing, dir John Baxter, British National Films, 1942.

Love on the Dole, dir John Baxter, British National Films, 1941.

Nothing Venture, dir John Baxter, Elstree Independent Films, 1948.

The Common Touch, dir John Baxter, British National Films, 1941.

Music

Berk, Ernest, Electronic Music for Two Ballets. Trunk Records, 2019. Cat: JBH081LP.

Web

‘Barbara K Emary’.

https://historyproject.org.uk/interview/barbara-k-emary Accessed 4 March 2020.

‘BFI screen long missing Doctor Who episodes‘. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6dZci_hddo&feature=youtu.be Accessed 4 March 2020.

‘Doctor Who Photonovels: The Underwater Menace’. http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/photonovels/underwater_menace/

Accessed 4 March 2020.

Guardian and Observer style guide: D. https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-d

Accessed 4 March 2020.

Ley, Shaun, ‘Missing Doctor Who episodes discovered’. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16136521

Accessed 4 March 2020.

‘Loose Cannon The Underwater Menace Extras Joseph Furst Interview LC23’.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3n5lz6

Accessed 4 March 2020.

McEwan, Cameron K.,‘DVD Review: The Underwater Menace’.

https://www.blogtorwho.com/dvd-review-underwater-menace/

Accessed 9 March 2020.

‘Missing Doctor Who episodes’.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/entertainment-arts-24487112/missing-doctor-who-episodes-found

Accessed 4 March 2020.

Napper, Lawrence, ‘Baxter, John (1896-1975)’

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/540908/index.html

Accessed 4 March 2020.

BIOGRAPHY

James Cooray Smith is a freelance writer and critic whose credits include The New Statesman, Prospect, Private Eye, Hero Collector and That Mitchell and Webb Sound. He researched and wrote the production information subtitles for several official BBC Doctor Who DVD releases, and is the author of the well-received Black Archives on The Massacre and The Ultimate Foe. He lives in North London with a Lady Barrister and their son.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks are due for (in varying combinations) research help, sounding board services, good ideas and sound advice, to Steffan Alun, Ralf Collie, Saliya Cooray, Stuart Douglas, Jonn Elledge, Simon Guerrier, Toby Hadoke, Jonny Morris, Phil Purser-Hallard, Gareth Roberts, Nigel Robinson, Eddie Robson and Martin Wiggins. Professional acknowledgements are due, and debts owed, to the BBC Written Archive Caversham, Highgate Library, the British Library, the BFI Library and my infinitely patient editor Paul Simpson. I offer hopefully sufficient wife praise in the direction of Swyrie Cooray Smith.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Title Page

CONTENTS

OVERVIEW

CHAPTER 1: ‘PREHISTORIC MONSTERS!’

CHAPTER 2: ‘HOPE IT’S THE DALEKS!’

CHAPTER 3: ‘PLEASE LET IT BE [...] 1966.’

CHAPTER 4: ‘WHAT HAVE I COME UPON?’

CHAPTER 5: ‘SCIENCE IS IN OPPOSITION TO ANCIENT TEMPLE RITUAL.’

CHAPTER 6: ‘NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN STOP ME NOW!’

CHAPTER 7: ‘I SHOULD LIKE A HAT LIKE THAT!’

CHAPTER 8: ‘LOOK AT HIM! HE’S NOT NORMAL, IS HE?’

CHAPTER 9: ‘A NEW ATLANTIS.’

APPENDIX A: ‘VITAL SECRET WILL DIE WITH ME. DR. W’

APPENDIX B: PRODUCTION TIMELINE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIOGRAPHY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS